Sacred Heart Reads: What It’s Worth: Strengthening the Financial Future of Families, Communities and the Nation

What It’s Worth is a collection of essays by experts from the financial sector, academia, nonprofits and grass roots movements written about the far-reaching and long-term impact of financial insecurity to American families and making a case for how it is also detrimental to the health of the American economy. It is presented in four sections that cover the current state (at its writing, before 45’s election), why financial health matters, who is being affected and proposed next steps and initiatives.

It delves into the systems, policies and practices that create obstacles for millions of Americans facing low wages, high costs of living, rising debt, unaffordable housing, and lack of access to the “pathways to prosperity:” education, entrepreneurship and home ownership. In addition to race and ethnicity, essays describe the complex situations further affecting Native Americans, the incarcerated, women and seniors. As we all know, it’s pretty bad. But in offering essays from a vast and impressive collection of contributors – including the foreword from Janet Yellen, formerly head of the Federal Reserve and now Secretary of the Treasury – there is a sense of promise given the force of those advocating and working, like we are, for change that leads to equity of opportunity.

Of course, they emphasize the foremost importance of empowering individuals with financial literacy, a basic understanding of the financial structures that exist, and the programs and services which can be trusted resources. Many of our colleagues here at Sacred Heart – two with whom I worked at Opportunity Fund – are conducting this work daily with our members, to instill money-wise practices, responsible decision making and even a healthy dose of skepticism as consumers, leading to their empowerment and to promoting progress in policy and member leadership.

If you are looking for a book that supports the far reaching implications of these inequities then I recommend this read, and especially getting these authors/contributors and their organizations on your radar. For more current information and data, I would direct you to Prosperity Now (https://prosperitynow.org/) as a reliable source for leading work in the area of economic empowerment and progress in scaling change to systems. I found that you can also access an electronic version of this book here.