Full report. - Social Research and Demonstration Corp

learn$ave Project: Final ReportChapter 5Savings and investment outcomesBecause learn$ave is among only a handful of savingsbasedinitiatives ever developed for low-incomeCanadians, the project can provide important informationon how low-income participants responded to an assetbasedand matched savings incentive. This chapter aimsto shed light on the following questions: Did participantssave in their learn$ave accounts as they were expectedto, during the relevant portion of the program? Didparticipants withdraw the matched credits as they wereexpected to during the relevant portion of the program?Did the addition of the financial management and casemanagement services have any measurable incrementalimpacts on the savings outcomes of participants in thelearn$ave plus groups over and above the outcomes ofthe learn$ave only groups? What can be learned aboutthe saving and account use of the project’s lowest incomeparticipants, those on social assistance? Did programparameters, which varied across sites, have an effect onsaving outcomes for participants?Before turning to the results, it is important to recallthe participants had the opportunity to accumulatesavings in the learn$ave project during a time-limitedperiod that began on the date they were enrolled in theproject and expired three years later. This is the outlinedbox of the program model depicted in Figure 5.1 and isthe focus of the next few sections of this chapter. Whenparticipants had accumulated a level of savings they determinedto be sufficient, they were eligible to withdrawsavings and use their matching credits worth $3 for each$1 of their contribution to invest in eligible project uses.By design, participants’ savings in their learn$ave accountwould have been expected to first rise and then fall to aslow as $0 as participants exhausted their IDA savings foreducation and other eligible project uses. For a definitionof IDA terms used in this chapter and elsewhere, see theglossary near the end of this report.Evidence on the use of the learn$ave IDAMean savingsAcross all sites and all program groups, the 3,607participants in learn$ave (excluding the control group)saved nearly $3.5 million in their Individual DevelopmentAccounts, with a mean of $959 per participant, orabout $320 1 a year during the saving period. This isa substantially higher than the average annual netdeposits of U.S.$229 (Sherraden, 2002) observed in theDownpayments in the American Dream Demonstration(ADD), even accounting for the differences in years and inthe value of the currencies, but acknowledging the lowerADD match rate. There was some variation in averagelearn$ave savings across project sites. Participants in theexperimental sites saved more than participants in thenon-experimental sites (Table 5.1). Similar to the ADDresults, learn$ave participants receiving income assistance(IA) at the time they enrolled in the project savedsubstantially less than the project-wide average, withmean net savings of $553 (not shown) across the projectsites. Thus, the mean amount saved in the learn$aveaccount among non-IA recipients is higher (last columnof Table 5.1). Results for participants receiving IA arediscussed in greater detail later in this chapter.Figure 5.1 Stages of learn$ave Program ParticipationPhase 1:entry(