Assets and the Poor

This work proposes a new approach to welfare: a social policy that goes beyond simple income maintenance to foster individual initiative and self-sufficiency. It argues for an asset-based policy that would create a system of saving incentives through individual development accounts (IDAs) for specific purposes such as college education homeownership self-employment and retirement security. In this way low-income Americans could gain the same opportunities that middle- and upper-income citizens have to plan ahead set aside savings and invest in a more secure future.