This blog post discusses the importance of financial literacy and empowerment within the Latino community. One example of a recent initiative is the ACF Region X partnership with Catholic Charities in Portland, Oregon to present a Spanish-language training called “Your Money, Your Goals.” This new financial empowerment toolkit for social service workers who serve the Latino community was created to train front-line staff on how to talk about personal finances with their clients. The resources are available in both English and Spanish.

The Moving to Opportunity (MTO) experiment provided housing vouchers to randomly selected families living in high-poverty housing projects. The vouchers allowed families to move to lower-poverty neighborhoods. Using administrative data from tax returns, the authors of this report present new evidence on the impacts of MTO on children’s long-term outcomes. They find that moving to a lower-poverty neighborhood significantly improves college attendance rates and earnings for children who were younger than 13 years of age at the time of moving. Children also live in better neighborhoods as adults and are less likely to become single parents.

This blog post from the Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education provides information about the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) and invites comments on the Notices of Proposed Rulemaking. WIOA aims to increase access to and opportunities for employment, education, training, and support services, particularly for individuals with the greatest barriers to employment. WIOA marks the most significant change to the Federal adult education, vocational rehabilitation, and workforce development systems in more than a decade.

In the May 2015 issue of the Office of Child Support Enforcement’s Child Support Report, practitioners can learn about different strategies for best serving their clients. Topics include an introduction to two-generation approaches, modifying child support orders for incarcerated parents, and grantee success stories.

The belief that those who work hard can achieve success has made Americans more tolerant of inequality than citizens in other advanced nations. However, to succeed, Americans need the opportunity to get ahead. In a report from the Brookings Institution and the Economic Mobility Project, Brookings Scholars Julia Isaacs, Ron Haskins, and Isabel Sawhill summarize research and present new evidence regarding the extent of intergenerational economic mobility in the U.S. and the factors that impact it.

In this report from Ascend at the Aspen Institute, the authors outline the emerging case for two-generation approaches to moving parents and families toward economic security. The report outlines key trends and data that are prompting the need for this approach. Data suggests that more than one in five U.S. children live in poverty, a connection exists between maternal education and child outcomes, and women and children in single-mother families have disproportionately high rates of poverty. Ascend identified three components in its equation for two-generation approaches: education + economic supports + social capital; a combination of these three components can lead to successful two-generation policies.

This article from the Future of Children Collaboration examines programs with an explicitly two-generation approach. The authors look at these past and current programs’ efficacy, and although the more recent two-generation programs are too young to have clear evidence, they found that the justification for these programs is strong and their early results are promising. Now is the time to innovate, experiment, and further study this two-generation approach.

Produced by the National Head Start Association with support from the Ascend project at The Aspen Institute, this report highlights six case studies from Head Start and Early Head Start programs that have implemented two-generation approaches within their programs. Each case study includes information on the project design, funding, partnerships, research, and future plans. Finally, an analysis of funding, partnerships, and research across all the programs is provided for a broad perspective.

This paper published by the Institute for Research on Poverty examines the effect of Medicaid expansions on intergenerational economic mobility. Using new data, the authors utilize the uneven Medicaid eligibility expansions across states to isolate the effect of this policy change on various mobility outcomes. The research led to the conclusion that Medicaid expansions increase the probability that children born to low-income parents experience absolute upward mobility. Furthermore, early exposure to health insurance may be influential in promoting intergenerational mobility and economic opportunity.

The report from First Focus provides a historical context and lessons learned on two-generation approaches to reducing poverty. The author discusses three policy areas to implement two-generation approaches, including Head Start, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Employment and Training, and TANF.