How poverty changes the brain, By Tara García Mathewson, April 19, 2017, The Atlantic: “You saw the pictures in science class—a profile view of the human brain, sectioned by function. The piece at the very front, right behind where a forehead would be if the brain were actually in someone’s head, is the pre-frontal cortex. It handles problem-solving, goal-setting, and task execution. And it works with the limbic system, which is connected and sits closer to the center of the brain. The limbic system processes emotions and triggers emotional responses, in part because of its storage of long-term memory. When a person lives in poverty, a growing body of research suggests the limbic system is constantly sending fear and stress messages to the prefrontal cortex, which overloads its ability to solve problems, set goals, and complete tasks in the most efficient ways…”
Tag: Financial security
Retirement Savings for Low-Income Workers – California
Congress targets a California law that aims to give low-income workers retirement security, By Evan Halper, February 9, 2017, Los Angeles Times: ” An ambitious California law intended to help create retirement security for low-income workers is in the crosshairs of the Trump-era Congress, which is moving to block the state and others from launching programs to automatically enroll millions of people in IRA-type savings plans…”
Underbanked Households
The millions of Americans without bank accounts, By Gillian B. White, October 20, 2016, The Atlantic: “The number of American families without a bank account dropped to about 9 million in 2015, the lowest rate on record since the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation started gathering data in 2009. Still, around 24 million households are considered underbanked, meaning that they have checking accounts but still rely on alternative services—such as pawn shops, check-cashing operations, and payday or auto-title loans—for their credit and cash needs. And that number, a new report finds, hasn’t improved much at all in the past few years, which means that tens of millions of Americans still struggle without access to basic financial services…”