Rochester Economic Mobility Cohort Evaluation Report by The Behavioral Insights Team

Through the What Works Cities Economic Mobility Initiative, the City of Rochester joined eight other cities across the US to design and pilot interventions to improve economic mobility. The City of Rochester partnered with CASH to pilot two initiatives to encourage savings behavior for low income residents. This report prepared by The Behavioral Insights Team highlights the pilots completed and the initial evaluations of those pilots. Background Through the What Works Cities Economic Mobility Initiative, the City of Rochester joined eight other cities across the US to help design and pilot interventions to improve economic mobility in their communities. This document highlights the work completed in October 2021 by the Behavioral Insights Team as part of this initiative. Goal To support Rochester residents build savings to improve their financial stability. Approach Two programs were implemented within this project. ROCyourRefund was an incentivized tax return savings program with a quarterly match for Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) recipients. Launched in February 2020, recruitment was halted by the COVID-19 pandemic the following month. The project partners pivoted to a new program launched in July 2021: the Seeds for Savings program aimed to connect residents with the Financial Empowerment Center (FEC) and encourage them to save by providing a $250 seed fund then a $250 savings match award. ROCyourRefund Results Findings suggest that a 50% savings match was more effective than both the 25% and 0% match at encouraging people to save. Seeds for Savings Results Participants credited the program with helping them save more than usual and increasing their motivation to save more in the future. The program was also able to reach residents of a different profile to the current FEC client base and participants reported intentions to continue meeting with their FEC counselors. Summary Both programs demonstrated early but promising results for improving saving outcomes for residents. The programs reached residents who were interested in saving but had not been able to realize their goals, and results indicated success in supporting residents to build their savings.