With a projected million middle skills jobs opening up in Indiana by 2024, skills-based/work-based learning is changing the way educators and employers are training, recruiting, and retaining talent to fill future workforce needs.

Work-based learning (WBL) offers a unique opportunity for individuals from diverse backgrounds to develop first-hand knowledge and skills beyond the classroom environment through industry exposure and on the job training. It provides employers with a platform to align their training needs with the actual skills necessary to be successful on the job.

Here are a few guidelines to use when building successful work based learning experiences:

U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) – ranking member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs – released ‘Pushing the Envelope: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Under the Trump Administration’ report to Congress.

According to a joint report from the Asset Funders Network (AFN) and the University of Wisconsin Center for Financial Security, more than half of all employees in the United States say they are financially stressed, with nearly one-in-three employees admitting to being distracted in the office due to personal finance issues.

Since 2012, the CFPB has been responsible for supervisory examinations of banks, lenders, and other financial institutions to ensure MLA compliance. However, the CFPB has chosen to relinquish its role as supervisor of MLA provisions.

Consumers in states where predatory lenders are expelled report being relieved and many adapt by employing a variety of safer financial strategies, including budgeting and borrowing from family. However, even once predatory lenders are driven out, payday lenders are finding legal loopholes – such as overdraft loans, installment loans, and auto title loans – that enable them to prey upon the most vulnerable in the community again.

We are counting on you to lift your voice to push back against potentially harmful changes to the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). CRA is a landmark civil rights law to end discrimination that was once common in America’s banking and housing markets.

While some strides have been made, the lack of investment in low-income areas and communities of color remains a persistent concern. Even still, regulators have proposed ideas that may substantially weaken the law via an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR).  We need you to speak up to ensure CRA is strengthened, not weakened. 

We only have until Nov. 19 to comment on these ideas and urge regulators to consider CRA reforms that more effectively hold banks accountable for equitable investments and help them more flexibly respond to community needs.

The United States Census Bureau recently unveiled its eighth Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) report, detailing the prevalence of poverty in our society and estimating the differences between the official measure of poverty and the poverty measures that take account of non-cash benefits and nondiscretionary expenses. 

ALICE is an acronym for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed. These households have incomes above the Federal Poverty Level but struggle to afford basic household necessities. In the words of Indiana United Ways Board Chair, Ron Turpin, “ALICE gets up each day to go to work, but still faces financial barriers – working jobs that offer no healthcare, vacation, or paid sick leave. These workers hold jobs that are critical to the success and vitality of our communities, yet they often struggle to afford food, rent, child care, and transportation, and have little left over for saving and investing.”

For the past decade, the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), a national community development organization with an office in Indianapolis, has cultivated an asset-building model called the Financial Opportunity Center (FOC) that bundles one-on-one financial coaching and employment services to help low-wealth families move closer to financial independence.  FOC services are delivered by highly trained coaches in familiar settings – typically organizations with deep roots in the neighborhoods they serve.  Despite good results from this one-on-one approach and people’s stated desired to continue working with a coach, it is often difficult to retain them in a long-term coaching relationship.  To that end, LISC has worked with the Common Cents Lab at Duke’s University’s Center for Advanced Hindsight to test an approach to improved coaching retention based on the principles of behavioral economics.

Today, Senator Donnelly and 48 other senators sent a letter to acting Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Director Mick Mulvaney, calling on the bureau to continue supervision of lending made to active duty servicemembers and their families to ensure that lenders are complying with the Military Lending Act (MLA). 

In late April, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced its intent to end public access to the Bureau's complaint database. Following the announcement, stakeholders, such as financial services companies, consumer advocacy groups, and concerned citizens, were invited to submit comments to the Bureau regarding the proposed change.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau joined two payday lender associations — the Consumer Financial Service Association of America and the Consumer Service Alliance of Texas — in a motion to push pause on pending litigation to block implementation of the CFPB’s payday rule. In the same motion, they sought a delay of the rule’s compliance date of August 19, 2019.

Wednesday was a victorious day for consumer advocates across the country. It marked the last day for lawmakers to act to repeal the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s payday rule, and the deadline passed without Congress voting to repeal the rule. Resolutions to repeal the rule were introduced in both the House and Senate, but failed to garner sufficient support.

According to a new report from the Wall Street Journal, Mick Mulvaney, acting Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, announced his intent to end public access to the Bureau’s complaint database. Consumers use the database to file complaints against financial companies, and the CFPB publishes these complaints for public use. “I don’t see anything in here that says I have to run a Yelp for financial services sponsored by the federal government,” Mulvaney said.

On Friday, March 23, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) introduced a bill in the Senate that would nullify protections for payday loan borrowers by repealing the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) federal payday loan rule.

Dear Senator Donnelly and Senator Young,

As a statewide coalition working to build assets for low-wealth Hoosiers, the Indiana Assets & Opportunity Network (The Network), we have several urgent concerns to bring to your attention regarding S. 2155, the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act.