Financial Security: A Foundation for Worker Wellbeing

Meeting This Moment: An Unprecedented Need & Opportunity for Employers to Act

  • Emotional wellbeing depends on financial security.
  • Employers can help; prioritize the financial “Swiss army knife” (Emergency Savings).
  • Solve for how workers are AND how they feel.

Download Timothy Flacke, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Commonwealth slide presentation from Human Resources Leadership Forum.

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Actionable Insights for Inclusive Product Design

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A Case Study in Workplace
Emergency Savings

Read the Brief

Perceptions of Financial Insecurity in America

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Emergency Savings

Media Coverage

More Companies Offer Emergency Savings Options to Workers

Commonwealth’s Nick Maynard weighed in on the increased emergency savings offerings from employers, including results from Commonwealth’s work with ADP…

Research

Emergency Savings Features That Work for Employees Earning Low to Moderate Incomes

Research from Commonwealth and DCIIA RRC identifies how emergency savings solutions can be best designed and offered to workers earning…

Our Work

Autosave

Emergency savings is foundational to financial security, yet far too many people living in the United States lack liquid funds…

Research

Collective Savings

Collective Emergency Savings is an innovative approach to building short term savings as a group. Through Commonwealth’s continued research on…

Research

Eye on Systemic Change in the Retirement Industry

This report summarizes a series of interviews with nine of the largest recordkeepers in the United States and seven plan…

Blog

Recordkeepers And Emergency Savings Webinar

With 37% of Americans unable to manage a $400 emergency with savings, and lower-income households, particularly Black, women-led households making…

Media Coverage

Wall Street Journal: UPS to Offer Employees a Way to Save for Emergencies

The Wall Street Journal breaks the news of UPS’s groundbreaking plan to offer nearly 100,000 of its employees a way…

Our Work

Emergency Savings

Emergency savings is foundational to financial security, yet far too many people living in the United States lack liquid funds…

Data

The $400 Problem

36% of Americans don't have $400 in savings for an unexpected emergency, including: 58% of households earning under $60k; 58% of Women earning under $60k; 70% of Hispanic households earring under $60k; and 72% of Black households earning under $60k
Federal Reserve

Financial Insecurity: Widely-Recognized Problem

65% said employers should be doing more to help with Financial Insecurity; 58% believed financial institutions should be doing more, and 55-57% believed the government should be doing more.
Commonwealth Perception Survey, 2020

Impact of Financial Insecurity on Corporations

$250 billion is lost in productivity due to financial stress
Mercer

Financial Insecurity: Widely-Recognized Problem

Median Household Networth: 188k (white families); 75k (Multiracial families), 36k (Latinx families), 24k (Black families). Median wealth of white family is 8x that of Black families and 5x that of Latinx families. Black families' median and mean wealth is less than 15% that of white families.
Federal Reserve

About Commonwealth

Commonwealth is a national nonprofit building financial security and opportunity for financially vulnerable people through innovation and partnerships. Black, Latinx and Women-led households disproportionately experience financial insecurity due in large part to longstanding, systemic racism and gender discrimination. Addressing these issues is critical to Commonwealth’s work of making wealth possible for all.