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A Fragile Balance examines strategies to promote emergency savings, especially among underserved households. Each chapter is by an expert contributor and proposes an innovative financial product or service designed to bolster emergency savings among low-asset families. This collection also offers readers insights into the role of emergency savings and mechanisms to facilitate savings behaviors, and raises critical questions of the scale, institutional capacity, sustainability, accessibility, and effectiveness of existing programs.

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1. Paying for the Unexpected: Making the Case for a New Generation of Strategies to Boost Emergency Savings, Affording Contingencies, and Liquid Resources for Low-Income Families; J. Michael Collins 2. Liquid Savings Patterns and Credit Usage Among the Poor; Leah Gjertson 3. Upside Down: The Failure of Federal Tax Policies to Support Emergency Savings; Ezra Levin 4. Save at Home: Building Emergency Savings One Mortgage Payment at a Time; Stephanie Moulton, Anya Samek, Cäzilia Loibl 5. The SaveUSA Coalition: Using Behavioral Economics to Build Unrestricted Savings at Tax Time; Jonathan Mintz 6. Refund to Savings: Creating Contingency Savings at Tax Time; Michal Grinstein-Weiss, Krista Comer, Blair Russell, Clinton Key, Dana Perantie, Dan Ariely 7. Enhancing Financial Capability TANF Bank Accounts; Karan Gill, Dana Mills, Margaret McKenna 8. Building Emergency Savings Through ´Impulse Saving´; Kim Manturuk, Jessica Dorrance, Jayson Halladay 9. Prosperity SmartSave Card: An Incentivized Emergency Savings Strategy; Sharon Henderson 10. Accelerating Savings Among Low-Income Households; Ed Khashadourian 11. Start2Save: Helping Working Families Meet Unexpected Expenses and Opportunities; Ingrid Holguin 12. Incorporating Savings into the Debt Management Plan; Karen Heisler, Seth Lutter 13. Who Said Pigs Can´t Fly? A Learner-Centered Approach to Emergency; Sonya Caesar 14. Epilogue: Emergency Savings as a Central Component of Family Financial Security; J. Michael Collins, Thomas Shapiro

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"A Fragile Balance is a must-read for individuals working with low-income consumers. ... this book provided a nice summary of the research to date on saving initiatives for low to moderate income households. ... The book is especially beneficial to community organizations wanting to help grow the emergency savings of low to moderate income households. ... I highly recommend this book for anyone working with low to moderate income households!" (Sonya L. Britt, Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Vol. 37, 2016)

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