Timely and well-targeted financial help during COVID-19: an employer-community partnership for hotel workers in New Orleans

ABSTRACT

Economic disruptions related to the COVID-19 pandemic left many households without the income necessary to meet basic needs. We describe an innovative, community-based partnership between a financial services company, philanthropic funders, and employers to provide financial assistance to hotel workers in New Orleans who lost jobs and income due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Results from a survey of 1,056 hotel workers show that workers experienced lower food insecurity and difficulty paying bills in the month after receiving assistance, while transaction data from the VISA gift cards used to disburse assistance showed that workers mostly used assistance on necessities. We discuss implications for employers who want to offer emergency assistance fund programs and for public policy changes to better support low-wage workers, especially those with children.

KEYWORDS:

• Low-wage workers
• Employee Assistance Funds
• community emergency assistance
• financial technology
• COVID-19

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by MetLife Foundation.

Notes on contributors

Mathieu Despard

Dr. Mathieu Despard is an Associate Professor in the Department of Social Work at UNC Greensboro where he teaches and advises PhD students in a joint program in social work with North Carolina A&T State University. Mat also serves as a Faculty Director and Visiting Scholar with the Social Policy Institute at Washington University in St. Louis where he leads the Workforce Financial Stability Initiative, an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Kenan-Flagler Business School at UNC-Chapel Hill, and as a member of the Academic Research Council of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Mat conducts research on financial security with a focus on lower-income households covering topics such as employee financial wellness, financial behavior experiments, emergency savings, small-dollar loans, student debt, refundable tax credits, universal basic income, and the economic impacts of COVID-19. He has published over 100 academic journal articles, research briefs and reports, working papers, and book chapters. His work has been cited and/or featured in various national outlets including the Washington Post, Atlantic Monthly, Brookings Institution, Leader's Edge, Ipsos, S&P Global Ratings, The Times (London), Axios, CNBC, Motley Fool, Forbes Magazine, MarketWatch, and Consumer Reports. He received his MSW and PhD degrees from UNC-Chapel Hill.

Selina Miller

Ms. Selina Miller is a PhD student at the Brown School and a Graduate Research Assistant with the Social Policy Institute at Washington University in St. Louis. Her research focuses on household financial security among vulnerable populations. Before beginning her doctoral work, Selina ran a financial coaching service at a small non-profit, where she developed an intervention to help low-income individuals build an emergency savings fund. Selina holds an M.S.W. from Brigham Young University.

Katie Kristensen

Katie Kristensen is a program manager at the Social Policy Institute (SPI) at Washington University in St. Louis. She organizes programs and activities in alignment with the strategic direction of SPI by creating and managing long term goals, developing and operating the plan for programs, and facilitating collaboration between research teams, partners, and stakeholders. Previously, Katie was the credit building manager at Justine PETERSEN, a community development finance institute, which seeks to increase the financial capability of low to moderate-income individuals via affordable housing, small business lending, and credit building. Previous experience with applied research and evaluation serves as an underpinning for Katie’s passion for participatory research and systems thinking. Katie obtained a master’s degree at Washington University with a focus in social economic development and specialization in research and a bachelor’s degree at Ohio Wesleyan University majoring in sociology and women’s and genders studies.

Amanda Utevsky

Amanda Utevsky graduated from Wellesley College in 2009, and later moved down south to attend Duke’s Psychology & Neuroscience graduate program, where she studied the brain basis of social and economic decision-making. Now working in the Common Cents Lab within the Center for Advanced Hindsight, she is excited to apply empirical research outside of the lab to help motivate people to make healthier financial decisions.