Children's Savings Accounts State and National Policy

Investing in children enhances each child's life experiences and contributes to the social and economic fabric of our state as a whole.

The principles of children’s savings account policy are:

• Inclusive
• Seeded with an initial deposit
• Designed to build lifelong assets
• Progressive
• Simple
• Private-market oriented
• Designed to build financial aspirations of youth and families
• Linked to age-appropriate financial education
• Nondiscriminatory

Children's Savings Accounts on a National Scale

There is a national movement to create universal, progressive children's savings accounts and several policies have been proposed, including the ASPIRE Act , and The Savings Competitiveness Act.

The Shriver Center supports the creation of a universal, progressive children's savings accounts as an investment in the future for everyone.

CFED has released a new report "Children's Savings Accounts and Financial Aid," June 2006.

Illinois CSA Policy Development

Universal, progressive children's savings accounts, championed by the Illinois Asset Building Group (IABG), are an innovative asset building strategy that help ensure that all children have the opportunity for lifelong learning and asset building by providing youth and their families with the mechanisms and incentives to accumulate savings.

With the help of the Asset Policy Initiative of California (APIC) and Mari Gallagher Research & Consulting Group, the following Local Asset Poverty Index (LAPI) maps provide a view of counties and county clusters in income and asset poverty. While income poverty is a term more people are aware of, asset poverty includes those households that do not have enough in assets to meet their expenses for three months if all outside sources of income were to disappear.

Illinois Income Poverty Map

Illinois Asset Poverty Map

Chicagoland Income Poverty Map

Chicagoland Asset Poverty Map

These maps show a large percentage of households facing asset poverty. More than half the counties in the state have one in four households unable to meet expenses for three months. For more information, please see a presentation regarding LAPI and the importance of assets.

State Policy Development

The Shriver Center is one of four SEED state policy partners that are developing policies to create or expand progressive savings opportunities for children and eliminate barriers to saving. The partners are responsible for leading state policy development, advocacy efforts, and consitituency organizing in their states.

Click here to learn what is happening in other states.