Our Research
Commonwealth conducts original qualitative and quantitative research with financially vulnerable people—including Black, Latinx, and women-led households who disproportionately experience financial insecurity. We also interview industry experts and academics. We take what we learn and translate findings into actionable insights and practical solutions designed to change systems to work better for financially vulnerable people. We work with community groups, employers, financial services firms, fintechs, policymakers, and workplace solution providers to design and test real-world, practical solutions that not only work for individuals and families, but are also scalable and address the business needs of our partners.
We share the results of our work to provide you with innovative ideas, practical insights, and the tools you need to act. Explore our publications below.
A New Framework for Positive Financial Futures
Financial systems must be designed to enable both the financial context and non-financial factors required to build a prosperous and equitable economy. Changing the landscape of financial security and opportunity for people living on low to moderate incomes (LMI) requires…
Building Credit to Build Wealth
Having a good financial credit score is a staple of American opportunity, but for many people it seems out of the realm of possibility. While 77% of Americans living on low to moderate incomes (LMI) have heard of ways to…
Recordkeepers’ Role in Solving the U.S. Emergency Savings Crisis
Employers and recordkeepers can play a key role in improving the financial security of U.S. workers through initiatives that enable short-term, liquid savings. With 37% of Americans unable to manage a $400 emergency with savings, and lower-income households, women, and…
A Lighthouse in the Storm
To better understand what role institutions currently play in low- to moderate-income (LMI) households’ financial lives—and what role they would like them to play—we surveyed the households participating in our study on their perceptions of government, employers, financial institutions, and…
Prize-Linked Savings in Credit Unions: 2019
As with previous years, prize-linked savings (PLS) products continued to grow in 2019. An additional 1.8 million people gained access to PLS products last year, bringing the total to 5.3 million consumers who now have the option to build savings…
Financial Coping Strategies
When Commonwealth began conducting interviews in June 2020, 21 households in our study had already lost 50% or more of their income due to COVID-19-related job loss or a severe reduction in hours. By the end of July, these households…
Emergency Savings
In the latest brief from Commonwealth’s Financial Resilience Project: COVID Stories, Rapid Insights, we share our latest insights on how people are using emergency savings during the COVID crisis, the difficulty of starting a savings habit during the crisis, and the…
Perceptions of Financial Insecurity in America
More than 80% of Americans agree financial insecurity is a major problem. In today’s uncertain economic climate, where business closures and mass layoffs have become the new normal, this finding may not be surprising. However, Commonwealth’s survey results come from…
A Tsunami of Volatility
In June, Commonwealth began following 56 families from across the US (households in 24 states with amedian annual income of $50,000) as they navigate life during a pandemic. In our biweekly interviews, we follow households’ changes in income, as well…
WINcentive Savings 2019 Report
WINcentive Savings, a multi-institution prize-linked savings (PLS) product, is an example of one of the many PLS programs that currently exists in the US. Now offered at 23 credit unions across Minnesota, WINcentive has established and grown a new pool of…