The Center intends to bring these questions into greater public view by working with businesses and other organizations to disseminate information around initiatives to alleviate employee poverty. The Center's general strategy will be to work directly both with companies and with their low-income employees, or to have members of its advisory committees undertake such initiatives.

The questions with which the Center will begin concern the activities of both companies and employees; they include applied research into best practices in training and mentoring, and emphasize the creation and monitoring of effective programs to encourage greater financial literacy and long-range economic planning skills among low-income workers.

What are the best practices of companies that assist low-income workers in filing their tax forms and that help their workers take advantage of the earned income tax credit (EITC)?

Although many communities have attempted to address low uptake of the EITC by eligible workers, the Center believes that there is a need for long-term, thorough research on the best ways to expand EITC receipt within businesses employing high concentrations of eligible workers. One approach will be to work with volunteer accounting and volunteer organizations and the IRS to help employees in such businesses gain an understanding of best practices in this area.

How do companies best assist their employees in using bank accounts, direct deposit, and healthy credit mechanisms?

Significant progress has been made toward using debit cards for paying low-income workers. More research is needed to show how and why this development is spreading. At the same time, more needs to be done to understand the impediments to progress in moving low-income workers toward traditional direct deposit and savings-based processes and philosophies of money management. One approach will be to establish links with payroll and benefits groups that assist companies in making wage payments to employees and, through our regional boards, linking them to companies that want to assist their low-income employees in establishing bank accounts, direct deposit of pay, healthy credit relationships and other financial abilities. In turn, the Center will monitor and evaluate the progress of these initiatives, in cooperation with the companies.

How do companies best help their employees resist using high-fee and high-interest financial institutions such as check-cashing shops and payday lending institutions?

Resolution of this issue is clearly linked to progress in establishing direct deposit and other forms of electronic payroll for low-income workers. A significant percentage of workers utilize check-cashing and payday loan services, to their own financial detriment. One approach will be to explore effective methods that are or could be used by firms to educate workers about the potential harm of using check-cashing shops and payday lenders and to disseminate information about alternative financial institutions.

What types of education promotion, training support and mentoring programs are most effective?

The Center's hypothesis is that there is a need to identify and disseminate information about effective models of adult training and mentoring that might, for example, help low-income employees build their net worth. Our intent is to analyze and publicize useful practices in training and mentoring programs such as those consolidated under the Workforce Investment Act and to monitor their outcomes.

At the same time, we believe that programs oriented toward the children of low-income employees are most effective at breaking cycles of generational poverty. It is for this reason that we are actively engaged in promoting means, through the workplace, for the children of low-income employees to receive assistance in completing their college financial aid forms. While there are many other steps that must be taken for children to succeed in school and college, we believe that access to financial aid is the one area where our work can be most effective. We say this partly because the financial aid form project is so closely related to the tax form preparation work we do. Much of the information required on the financial aid forms comes directly off of the tax forms.

Our belief is that efforts underway to link the tax form and the financial aid application are highly productive. One of the Center's goals is to influence, from a practical perspective, the process that is used to more effectively use tax information to complete means tests for financial aid and other government programs.

When employees receive lump sum payments for retirement funds, profit sharing, or severance, how can employers best stage the payments or in other ways assist employees to invest the monies wisely?

It is believed that lump sum payments are often poorly invested by employees, but the issue is not well researched and much of the evidence is anecdotal. As with lottery wins, lump sum payments may generate family and financial difficulties, for example, through large, unwise consumer purchases, and less fundamental investment in long- term holdings that have the capacity to fundamentally change a person's or a family's economic position. One approach will be to work with companies and their benefit firms to move them away, where appropriate, from making lump sum payments to the employees and to monitor, where possible, the influence of changes to companies' lump sum policies.

How can minority supplier programs of larger companies benefit firms with low-income employees?

Minority supplier programs work best if the company with the program looks for minority-owned suppliers that also have many minority employees who will in turn benefit from the improvement of their employers' business. One approach will be to conduct research and disseminate information on the costs and benefits of minority supplier programs that depend on employees of the supplier firm to buy the products of the firm with the minority supplier program.

How can companies best encourage their low-income employees to take matches on retirement plans, invest in Individual Development Accounts, become owners of employer stock, establish personal savings and retirement accounts, and develop home equity?

Employees in general want to be able to invest, save, and develop equity in their own homes, but many may face personal or systemic barriers in doing so. Personal barriers may include poor consumer habits, inertia, and uncertainty about the best way to act. Employees may not have had the education, opportunity, or support to improve their financial and planning skills. One approach will be to team with appropriate investment firms and others to help educate low-income employees on options for saving, consumption, investing, using matching programs, and building equity in homes. We will monitor the outcomes of such education.