Rescaling and reframing poverty: Financial coaching and the pedagogical spaces of financial inclusion in Boston, Massachusetts

Community intervention strategies to reduce the impact of financial strain and promote financial well-being: a comprehensive rapid review

“…Underserved populations, particularly low-income people and families, people experiencing poverty, youth, seniors and un- or under-employed people were also the frequent target of the interventions/organisations included in the environmental scan. Nearly all of the articles included in the rapid review focused on interventions that took place in large urban population centres in the Unites States (US) ( 43 – 45 , 47 , 49 – 51 , 54 – 63 ). One article reported on a Canadian intervention ( 46 ) and another on an Australian intervention ( 52 ), both in large urban population centres.…”

“…They also reported benefits related to mental, physical and social health (e.g. depression, social connection, self-esteem, personal safety; 30 , 36 , 37 , 44 , 45 , 47 , 50 , 56 , 57 , 59 , 61 , 64 , 65 ) healthy lifestyle behaviours (e.g. preventative healthcare, fast food consumption; 30 , 49 , 51 , 56 , 58 , 59 , 61 ), motivation to change ( 43 , 51 ), crime recidivism ( 30 , 34 , 38 ), and positive educational (e.g.…”

“…The evidence reviewed was limited in relation to understanding intervention outcomes and impacts. Specific outcomes attributable to the individual intervention (sub-)strategies was lacking because the majority of the interventions assessed in the rapid review were multi-component or included wrap-around support ( 43 – 53 ), were focused on process measures rather than outcomes ( 46 , 57 ), and/or according to the article authors had limited generalisability ( 44 , 45 , 47 , 49 , 50 , 53 , 54 – 56 , 58 , 59 , 61 – 63 ) and/or significant methodological limitations (e.g. small sample size, use self-report data; 43 , 46 , 52 , 53 , 56 , 59 , 61 , 63 ).…”

“…Except for two articles ( 49 , 63 ), the interventions included in the rapid review did not target financial well-being and/or strain specifically. They had adjacent foci, such as economic stability or security ( 43 , 46 , 48 , 51 , 62 ), economic self-sufficiency ( 44 ), financial capability ( 47 , 57 ), financial hardship ( 55 , 56 , 58 ), financial stress ( 59 – 61 ), employment ( 51 – 52 ), poverty reduction ( 43 , 50 , 55 , 56 , 58 ), and changes in financial behaviours and skills ( 54 , 59 – 61 ). Many interventions also had improved health and well-being as an objective ( 45 , 48 , 55 , 56 , 58 ).…”

Investable poverty: Social investment states and the geographies of poverty management

“…Despite significant changes associated with the increasing prominence of social investment as a rationality of government – particularly in the Anglo-American context, where the ‘productive’ purpose of social spending has long been denigrated, and where much experimentation is occurring – geographers have been relatively slow to respond with research that charts and/or critiques those changes. There is, however, nascent interest in the embedding of private-financial instruments and subjectivities within and through poverty management practices (Rosenman, 2019; Loomis, 2018; Mitchell, 2017; Lake, 2016), and strong interest, more broadly, in the dialectical interaction of states and financial processes (Christophers, 2016; Peck and Whiteside, 2016; Bryant and Spies-Butcher, 2018). For their part, political scientists and policy scholars have compiled a sizeable literature focused specifically on social investment states, in Europe and North America primarily.…”