On July 16, 2008, CFED hosted Assets and Opportunity Policy Progress: A virtual convening on state achievements in the 2008 legislative session.  This two-hour webinar highlighted state policy developments on the 12 core asset policies in CFED's 2007-2008 Assets and Opportunity Scorecard.

Thanks to momentum generated by the Assets & Opportunity campaign, the tireless efforts of our campaign partners and other advocates, and leadership by innovative policymakers, the 2008 state legislative season has seen significant action taken on policies critical to helping people build and protect assets. During this event, we:

• summarized recent policy changes on all 12 Scorecard Core Policies
• highlighted innovative approaches to asset policy design on two issues:
• Earned Income Tax Credit, including enactment of a state EITC in Washington
• Payday lending, including policy victories in Arkansas and Ohio
• shared state policy opportunities on Food Stamp asset limits resulting from passage of the Farm Bill
• provided opportunities for interactive exchange on Scorecard policy data and developments.

Click here to view the virtual convening PowerPoint presentation.

New data are available for the 12 core Scorecard policies.  Click here to access the data.

ADDITIONAL CONVENING-RELATED RESOURCES:

To learn more about the 2007-2008 Scorecard core policies and findings, visit www.cfed.org/go/scorecard.

State and Federal Asset Policy

• September 11-13, Assets Learning Conference, Washington, DC
• Monthly state policy updates (send an email to scorecardpolicy@cfed.org)
• Federal policy updates & alerts

State EITC

• Center on Budget and Policy Priorities – Earned Income Tax Credit page.
• Jason Levitis and Jeremy Koulish, “State Earned Income Tax Credits: 2008 Legislative Update,” June 6, 2008.
• Washington State Budget and Policy Center – Working Families Credit page.
  

Payday Lending

• Center for Responsible Lending, “Springing the Debt Trap,” December 13, 2007.
• Arkansans Against Abusive Payday Lending
• Ohio Coalition for Responsible Lending

Asset Limits in the Food Stamp Program

• Stacy Dean, Colleen Pawling and Dorothy Rosenbaum.  Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, “Implementing New Changes to the Food Stamp Program,”  pp. 61-68, July 2008.