The 20th Research and Evaluation Conference on Self-Sufficiency (RECS 2020), sponsored by the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation, will now be held virtually on October 13-15 and October 19-22, 2020. Panels will cover TANF Programs, Policies, and Populations; Employment and Mobility in the Labor Market; Youth Well-Being and the Transition to Adulthood; Strengthening Families, Fatherhood, Marriages, and Relationships; Evaluating Social Programs, Building Evidence, and Using Data; and Approaches to Alleviate Poverty and Expand Opportunity. Future information with registration details will be posted.

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) disproportionally affect low-income, racial, and ethnic minority families. In an effort to improve health outcomes for poor families, the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health and the Office of Minority Health have released a grant opportunity that focuses on ACEs and whether earned income tax credit (EITC) education and outreach activities can result in increased EITC receipt and changes in risk for ACEs. Eligible organizations include state, county, and city governments; Native American tribal organizations; public and state-controlled institutions of higher education; public housing authorities; nonprofit organizations; and nonprofit institutions of higher education. Up to 6 grants are expected to be awarded. The application due date is August 17, 2020.

This Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation report presents findings of the Strengthening Relationship Education and Marriage Services (STREAMS) evaluation, which is a random assignment impact analysis and process assessment of five Healthy Marriage and Relationship Education (HMRE) grantees. The process study report identifies findings on The Parenting Center’s experiences in the design and implementation of Empowering Families, which was designed to offer integrated HMRE and economic stability services to couples raising children together. The STREAMS impact evaluation reviewed the effectiveness of the integrated HMRE Empowering Families program and whether intensive economic stability services effect participants’ employment and earnings and relationship quality and co-parenting.

The Aspen Institute has developed a series of digital events entitled Conversations in Financial Security in Response to COVID-19: How to Triage, Recover, and Stabilize. Tenth in the series, this webinar on July 1, 2020 from 1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. ET will highlight the importance of addressing employees’ financial challenges to ensure an equitable economic recovery.

This blogpost suggests potential ways to expand the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) to support low-wage workers with increased income to enable them to have additional resources to weather the COVID-19 pandemic. The blogpost further notes ways that an expanded EITC might also encourage low-wage workers to file federal income tax returns and, in turn, be able to receive economic stimulus payments under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act.

This issue brief identifies COVID-19’s impact on household income and the income insecurity resulting from the macroeconomic slowdown. The brief presents data on emergency savings; the number of low-wage workers; the percentage of earners in low-wage occupations by race, ethnicity, immigration status, and gender; and low-wage workers’ lack of access to economic supports and wage protections.

This report identifies a nexus between the physical, social, and economic conditions of low-income neighborhoods and the health and financial well-being of the people who live in these communities. Included are the importance of aligning these sectors to improve these community residents’ prospects as well as examples of where these alignments exist. The report also highlights opportunities for collaboration and integration across community, public health, and financial sectors and discusses challenges of fostering this alignment.

This Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation report assesses initial findings of Paycheck Plus, a refundable tax credit program for low-income workers without dependent children. The report examines the effect of this demonstration program among low-wage earners in Atlanta by evaluating the effect of a bonus payment on employment rates, earnings, and income on a pre-tax and post-tax basis. The report also identifies the effect of the bonus by gender, level of disadvantage, and earnings of study participants before entering the study.

This policy brief examines how state tax systems use or have developed earned income tax credit (EITC) programs below the federal level. The brief also provides a set of steps that could be used to formulate a new state EITC campaign in the 31 states that do not currently have an EITC in their tax code.

This research to practice brief identifies a set of established, promising, and developing practices that serve to improve low-income families’ economic well-being comprehensively. The practices cover financial security, workforce development, housing, and case management and highlight research on each area’s benchmarks and measures of success and the organizations that are engaged in these programmatic areas.