Our Financial Empowerment Initiative (FEI) seeks to provide financial education and asset development opportunities to lower-income workers and community residents to help them enter the financial mainstream and to acquire and maintain assets.
Employers also benefit from their employees being educated on finances, as they are likely to be more productive when not bogged down by financial problems.
The Need for Financial Education
In today's increasingly complex economy, financial education is a universal need. Many workers lack access to knowledge that could help them achieve stability and improve the quality of their lives.
Money problems and detrimental financial behaviors are widespread, especially in lower-income and minority households. Many do not have bank accounts and often fall prey to unscrupulous lenders that offer credit cards, payday loans, car-title loans, etc., at extremely high rates.
FEI Curriculum
In partnership with local manufacturing companies, JARC offers a 12-hour on-site training course for workers. JARC also offers weekly financial education classes for community residents in English and Spanish.
Our training course covers:
- Budgeting basics
- Credit - how to get your credit report and how to read it
- Debt management
- Savings and checking accounts
- Taxes
- Insurance
- Homeownership
- Investing and retirement planning
- And more!
Customization
We customize our training to meet the needs of the audience based on information collected in pre-training surveys.
One-on-one Financial Counseling
JARC continues to support our clients after the 12-hour training course ends. We offer one-on-one financial/credit counseling to financial education program participants as requested.
We also provide referrals to free and low-cost resources available in the community such as tax preparation, legal clinics, immigration services, and more.
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Photo by Margo Cohn
Benefits of Financial Education
The benefits of financial education are numerous to both employers and workers.
For workers:
 Improved financial literacy
Less stress about money
 matters
Increased savings for
retirement and other assets
Reduced debt
Improved credit scores
And more
For employers:
Increased participation in
employer benefits programs
Less employee time wasted
on money problems
Less absenteeism, tardiness,
and turnover
Fewer requests for payroll
advances
And more
JARC is a member of The Center for Working Families® (CWF). CWF is an approach to help low-income families reach financial stability and move up the economic ladder. The CWF offers an innovative framework for how families can increase their earnings and income, reduce their financial transaction costs, and build wealth for themselves and their communities.
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Human Development
Financial Education