2020 Conference

workplace financial counseling, employee financial wellness, credit building, intervention

Employee Financial Wellness Programs aim to make it easier for low- and moderate-income (LMI) workers to gain access to products/services that improve their financial security, such as financial counseling and emergency savings programs. This study examines engagement in and credit health outcomes associated with a workplace financial counseling program offered to LMI employees. The analytic sample included 2,849 workers who received services under a low-touch, hybrid in-person and remote model from 2015 through 2018 and were tracked for a period of at least six months. Using administrative data from the service provider, multivariate regression analyses with robust standard errors were performed to help determine whether receiving higher amounts of services was associated with better credit outcomes, while controlling for other factors such as age and gender. Results indicated that greater changes in credit scores were associated with receiving a higher number of sessions, suggesting that workers need more than 1 or 2 counseling sessions to take actions that can improve credit health. Greater changes were also associated with subprime baseline credit scores, suggesting that workers with low credit scores may benefit the most from counseling and may increase chances of accessing more affordable forms of credit such as car loans.