Giving Compass' Take:

• Prosperity Now lays out the ways in which public policy precludes prosperity and how better policies can help people break out of the cycle of poverty. 

• How can funders best support better policies? Which policy changes have the greatest potential for impact? 

• Learn how philanthropists can make an impact on wealth inequality. 

The Prosperity Now Scorecard is a comprehensive resource for data on household financial health and policy recommendations to help put everyone in our country on a path to prosperity.

Too often, we equate poverty with not having a job, but millions of working individuals and families are struggling to make ends meet.  Although annual unemployment and underemployment rates (4.5% and 8.9%, respectively, as of the third quarter of 2017) have returned to pre-recession levels nationally, labor markets are not equally tight across the entire country. For millions more workers, opportunities to save and build wealth are out of reach, not because of unemployment or underemployment, but because of low wages.

Asset limits in public benefits programs like Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) are saving penalties that prohibit savings and building wealth in the United States. Rather than helping families to set money aside or begin planning for major purchases like a home— purchases that could be the best opportunities to permanently escape the cycle of poverty and end the need for public assistance—asset limits instead discourage even modest savings.

The most recent Survey of Consumer Finances from the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System found that median net worth increased to $97,300 in 2016, after years of decline and stagnation. The gap between White and Black wealth and between White and Hispanic wealth grew by 15.6% and 13.7%, respectively.20 Black and Hispanic households have a median net worth of $17,600 and $20,700, respectively, compared to $171,000 for White households.

New Scorecard data on key outcomes for people with a disability and households with a member with a disability show that they face significant challenges to financial stability. They have higher poverty levels, lower wealth and are less likely to complete both high school and college. People with disabilities should have the same opportunity to prosper as people without disabilities, and these data speak to the need to remove the societal and institutional barriers standing in their way.