Low-income Families that are able to save money are more likely to have children who are upwardly mobile when they become adults, according to a new report released by the Economic Mobility Project of the Pew Charitable Trusts, and co-authored by two scholars from the New America Foundation. The report, A Penny Saved is Mobility Earned: Advancing Economic Mobility Through Savings, offered this new evidence of the importance of saving alongside recommendations by the authors for improving the federal tax code and other policies to promote saving and upward economic mobility among low-income families.

In addition, the authors of the report found that: 

• Children of low-income, high-saving parents are more likely to experience upward income mobility. 
• Higher personal savings also promotes greater upward mobility of individuals within their own lifetimes.
• The federal government has in place a suite of tax policies and specially-designated accounts that promote savings-however, in 2004 only .2 of federal tax benefits for retirement savings went to the poorest 20% of tax filers.
• Those most likely to benefit from saving are discouraged from doing so by a complex set of asset limits in public assistance programs.