Do You Live in an Orange State or a Blue State?

No, I’m not talking political parties, sports teams or anything at all along those lines. I’m talking about states with policies that encourage citizens’ financial security. Governing ran a story on February 6, 2014 by J.B. Wogan on States See Mixed Results in Attempts to Improve Financial Security. The article discusses a new report by the Corporation for Economic Development (CFED).  CFED, according to its website, “is a multi-faceted organization working at the local, state and federal levels to create economic opportunity that alleviates poverty.” The report that is discussed in the Governing article names a number of statistics pertaining to “economic well-being” with emphasis on “liquid asset poverty rate” (which is a means of knowing the number of households that have saved enough for 3 months of expenses). 

The CFED report covers their 2014 “scorecard” (check out your state’s score) which looks at state policies. The Governing article discusses policies as the driver of change and provides a U.S. map with states colored orange, blue or somewhere in between.  (“strong policies and relatively high financial security (orange), weak policies and relatively low financial security (blue) and a few cases that don’t fit either scenario… blue with orange stripes.”)