Ray Boshara: All Related Content

This essay explores the issue of economic mobility from a variety of perspectives. It was designed to inform the work of the Economic Mobility Project (EMP), an initiative of The Pew Charitable Trusts. The essay begins by considering whether we should focus on relative or absolute mobility, and how we should collectively decide the optimal and desired levels of mobility. The essay closes with some principles and policy recommendations for promoting economic mobility in America.

I was honored to be asked to write the Foreword to Just Give Money to the Poor: The Development Revolution from the Global South by David Hulme, Joseph Hanlon, and Armando Barrientos of the University of Manchester. This book, published by Kumarian Press last year, argues for the new and provocative idea that, as the title suggests, simply giving money to the poor, and letting them spend it as they see fit, is the best way to combat poverty.

Ray Boshara prepared this presentation for the “Ten Years in the War on Poverty” Symposium sponsored by the Chronic Poverty Research Centre in Manchester, United Kingdom in September 2010.

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Ray Boshara and Phil Longman prepared this presentation for a discussion of their book, "The Next Progressive Era," for a book talk at Washington University in St. Louis on January 27, 2010.

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Ray Boshara prepared this presentation for the Southern Regional Asset-Building Coalition Conference, "Closing the Wealth Gap: Promoting Change by Working Together," held October 21 and 22nd, 2010 in New Orleans. 

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Ray Boshara prepared and delivered this plenary presentation, "Asset Building in the US: Context, Findings, and Future Directions," for the "Building Family and Personal Financial Capability" summit at Iowa State University on March 31, 2010.

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The National Endowment for Financial Education commissioned experts to write four white papers for their "Quarter Century Project: 25 Years of Research in Financial Education." Ray Boshara of the New America Foundation was a member of the team tasked to write on the theme of "Consumer Trends and New Opportunities:  What are the emerging trends, new

Ray Boshara Ray Boshara fondly remembers his grandmother washing and re-using plastic sandwich baggies. Her frugality has inspired him to champion a new era of thrift and stewardship for America.

Jay Leno has mentioned it in his monologue.

Last week, both US News & World Report and Fox's Glenn Beck wrote about it.

In July, Next Gingrich penned an op-ed in favor of it.

In April, the Reverend Jim Wallis and former speechwriter to President George W. Bush, Michael Gerson, praised it.

And, all along, a bi-partisan group of Senators and Representatives, now led by Chuck Schumer, have been behind it. Even arch-conservative Rick Santorum, who Schumer worked hard to defeat, stood side-by-side with Schumer to introduce it in Congress a few years back.

The "it" is the ASPIRE Act, a lifelong savings and financial literacy account created at birth for every child in America. The bill allows the savings to be used for college, a first home, and retirement, and offers greater benefits to those most in need.

But why now, and from such an odd mix of people? Would it work? And would the Obama Administration get behind it?

A child in Uganda, orphaned when his parents died of AI DS, is off the streets and avoiding AI DS himself by saving money for secondary school with the support of the innovative Suubi project, which provides poor children with Child Development Accounts. In China's western Xinjiang region, a poor rural farmer sees his "dead," or untouchable, pension savings become "live," or usable income-producing assets, thanks to the work of a visionary local government bureaucrat.

Key talking points on 529 plans, their current flaws, and how progressive features might remedy them.

Washington, DC -- The New America Foundation commends Vice President Biden and the Obama Administration's Middle Class Task Force for their announcement today to review 529 plans to make them more effective and reliable. The announcement came during a meeting in St. Louis, Missouri on College Affordability. "529s are a great vehicle for college savings for many better-off families, now the challenge is to make them a good deal for low- and middle-income families as well," said Ray Boshara, Vice President of Domestic Policy Programs at the New America Foundation.