New ERA (Economic Rights for All) is a youth led organizing campaign seeking to address issues regarding economic rights, financial education, and accessibility to mainstream financial products.
As youth leaders in our community we are interested in organizing around economic rights because we have seen how the lack of accessibility to mainstream financial products and education about personal finance affects our families, friends and neighbors. More than half of the residents in our community are un-banked and use fringe outlets like check cashers. Youth adopt the financial practices of their parents, meaning that many youth stand to lose $40,000 over their working years if they use check cashers. In the Mission alone, residents pay $16.5 million a year in payday loan fees. Related credit issues create housing and employment barriers and cost individuals more than $300,000 over their lifetime in extra interest costs.
Goals of New ERA:
• To raise awareness among un- and under-banked youth and their families of their financial and economic rights and their banking options.
• To gain support for policies related to promoting youth accounts and financial training: to ensure that all youth transition into adulthood with an account and financial skills.
• To gain support for policies related to fringe outlet regulation: to reduce the fees that check cashers can charge and make payday lending illegal like it is in 17 other states.
What do New ERA youth want to see in their community as a result of their campaign?
• Financial education programs with accounts and awareness about predatory services practices.
Becoming youth leaders at Mission SF has allowed us to learn money management skills and understand how financial institution work. We think all young people growing up in the United States should have access to financial education in schools and after school programs. Mission SF’s MY PATH, has worked with youth employment agencies in San Francisco, to offer youth participant peer-based financial education tied to savings account. Each youth sets their own personal goal and are eligible to receive monthly prizes. We have seen these types of programs work, especially when youth are saving for things they want and receive incentives. Giving youth the opportunity to learn how to manage their money early will lead them to be financially savvy as adults. We want to provide tools to educate consumers about the dangers of using predatory services, as well as introducing and steering them to alternatives. Many low-income neighborhoods, community of color and military families are using these services without knowing the risk and become trapped in a cycle of debt. We believe there needs to be more regulation on predatory services to reduce the amount of money they take from our community.
We are seeking to build a coalition of support from various neighborhoods and organizations from across San Francisco that can help to influence policy makers. New ERA is seeking to build support to influence our targets by petitioning, speaking at public hearings, providing workshops to other youth and organizations, holding press conferences and requesting meetings with state and local officials to discuss policy changes that will benefit the community.
