Why One City is Prioritizing Financial Empowerment


To tackle the inequality and lack of opportunity facing many of its historically marginalized communities, St. Paul, Minnesota, recently opened an Office of Financial Empowerment. The office will create a city-wide strategy to address ways to improve the financial health of citizens, including an assessment of the ways that government fines and fees might actually work against residents. The city expects successes similar to an effort to eliminate all library fees, which helped increase traffic to low-income libraries and allowed those with previously suspended library cards to check out books again.

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