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San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee Recognizes Groundbreaking Pilot to Bring Innovative Financial Capability Program MY Path to Summer Jobs + Participants
San Francisco the first in the nation to combine workforce development, financial literacy, access to credit union financial products, and saving incentives into summer youth employment
SAN FRANCISCO, CA (August 13, 2013) — Yesterday, Mayor Ed Lee praised the groundbreaking collaboration between United Way Summer Jobs +, Mission SF Community Financial Center and Community Trust, a division of Self Help FCU to provide summer youth employment program participants not only with financial education through Dollarwise: Mayors for Financial Literacy program, but also, through Mission SF’s MY Path and Community Trust, with access to quality financial products and support to set and meet a personal savings goal. After his brief remarks, the Mayor presented Summer Jobs + participant John Wong with a certificate and iPad from the DollarWise program.
“We are proud to have innovative financial capability programs like MY Path coming out of San Francisco and are pleased to partner with Mission SF, Community Trust and United Way as they expand MY Path’s reach in the city,” the Mayor said. “We know that saving is connected to upward economic mobility, and San Francisco wants to support its working youth to open accounts, start saving and learn how to manage their paychecks.”
John Wong participated in United Way’s Matchbridge summer youth employment program, landing a paid internship at CAC Real Estate Management Co, Inc. Through MY Path, John saved $300, or about 30 percent of his wages, to put toward college textbooks. “The MY Path program made it really easy to save,” John Wong said. “After I set my savings goal, my wages were split, with part going into my MY Path account, so that I would automatically achieve it. I think this is something I will do again at my next job.”
Mission SF’s MY Path provided all 80 Matchbridge participants with two bank accounts at Community Trust— one to keep their spending money and another to keep their savings— financial education to learn how to use their accounts, as well as both peer support and cash incentives to set personal savings goals, budget, and track expenses. In partnership with Community Trust, with which Mission SF is co-located, MY Path has supported participants in the Mayor’s Youth Employment and Education Program’s school-year program to save over $400,000 in the last two years. Though other cities have connected summer employment with financial education, San Francisco is the first in the nation to integrate MY Path savings accounts at Community Trust, direct deposit splits and support in setting savings goals.
Margaret Libby, Executive Director of Mission SF, added “There are thousands of youth in San Francisco, as well as millions across the country, who earn money through both summer and school year municipal employment programs, and there is currently no system to steer them away from check cashers, engage them in the financial mainstream, and help them save and manage their paychecks. With unwavering support from Community Trust, this collaboration gave Mission SF a powerful opportunity to demonstrate the role that MY Path can play in building this system, a system we know is essential for low-income youth and young adults to realize their potential and achieve economic mobility.”
Earlier this year, the Center for Financial Services Innovation awarded Mission SF a $350,000 Financial Capability Innovation Fund II grant, which will enable 400 more working youth in SF to participate in MY Path. In partnership with the Federal Reserve Bank of SF, national asset-building experts Michael and Margaret Sherraden, and an evaluation team led by Vernon Locke at Eastern Washington University, Mission SF will conduct randomized control trial of different versions of MY Path to identify the most successful model for national replication.
About Mission SF Community Financial Center
Formed in 1996 as the non-profit affiliate of the Mission Area Federal Credit Union, Mission SF supports low-income youth to take control of their personal finances by ensuring they have access to quality financial products, a working knowledge of personal finance best practices, and a social support system to develop and sustain sound financial habits. Mission SF’s MY Path program is supported by San Francisco’s Department of Children, Youth and Their Families, and CFSI’s Financial Capability Innovation Fund II; as well as Citi Foundation; Friedman Family Foundation; Walter and Elise Haas Fund; Charles Schwab Bank; Charles Schwab Foundation; and U.S. Bank.