The Opt-Out Solution

Earlier this month, the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) proposed new rules to regulate payday lending – the business of offering high-cost short-term loans to Americans on terms that many consumer advocates consider predatory.

Years of misrule and a subsequent dearth of hard currency, along with crippling bank-fostered debt cycles and exorbitant home mortgage interest rates, have created immense suffering for Myanmar's poor. But with the guidance of a local NGO, Women for the World, a pilot project helped women in some of Yangon's poorest neighborhoods capitalize on their cultural "head-of-household" status. It helped them form and manage community savings cooperatives, secure land, build homes, buy food, and even generate profit through loans to families' business enterprises.

Flexibility allows employees to “work smarter and better.” The productivity payoffs of offering part-time hours and remote work outweigh the administrative costs of such policies, according to a study in Australia.

Stockholm, Sweden is known as the best city in the world for work-life balance, as it boasts flexible work hours and nearly two years' parental leave per child for each parent. While raising a child with a full-time career still poses challenges, the norm for businesses in Stockholm is to cater to working parents' busy schedules in order to support equal childcare between mothers and fathers.

To improve financial literacy and knowledge around child development, Prosperity Works – a program in New Mexico – is offering classes focused on these issues to parents. This program offers the foundational education necessary to open a bank account and use Individual Development Accounts to save funds for housing or educational needs.

Europe's generous social policies, such as allowing employees to retain their salaries while taking sick time to care for themselves or family members, may help to mitigate the coronavirus outbreak while also safeguarding the economy. Although the long-term impacts are yet unknown, in the short term, government-provided incentives are helping people and businesses stay afloat.

A pediatric care center in Philadelphia has partnered with a nonprofit that "helps people with tax prep and asset-building" as well as an organization that provides financial counselors to offer young patients free, on-site help with their taxes. The initiative is modeled after Boston Medical Center' StreetCred program which has "returned more than $5.3 million to more than 2,700 low-income families since 2016."

The Business Center for New Americans, a nonprofit that offers loans with a focus on immigrant-run businesses, is going above and beyond to make sure its lenders get through the COVID-19 economic crisis. They are offering tailored support on how to apply for Economic Injury Disaster Loans, sharing other grant and loan opportunities, and using its status part of the SBA’s Microloan Program to offer new loans.

A psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner (PMHNP) is a role that combines the medical expertise of a nurse with mental health training. PMHNPs undergo special certification to combine the two fields and help ease the strain on the mental health workforce, which has been significantly depleted since the COVID-19 pandemic. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that PMHNPs will be the fastest-growing profession over the next decade and several universities are obtaining grants to boost their PMHNP programs, providing stipends for those who want to earn the certification.

Following the success of New York City's divestment of pension funds from fossil fuels, a process that started in 2015, other cities around the US are exploring ways to achieve net-zero portfolio emissions. In most cases, the divested pension funds have performed at least as well financially as a city’s non-divested funds.