I did not mention it last week, because I wanted first to focus on the new initiative itself, but there is also a new book, the proceeds of which will support the Jonathan Clements Getting Going on Savings Initiative.
The book is a hand-picked collection of Jonathan’s own favorite columns from his time at the Wall Street Journal, edited (and in some cases updated, such as when tax topics are addressed) by Christine Benz, Bill Bernstein, Allan Roth, and Jason Zweig:
I quite enjoyed the book myself, and I hope you do as well.
To everybody who has donated to support the new program: thank you. I, and the rest of the group, sincerely appreciate it.
I also want to address a few of the most common questions that have come in, with respect to the new program. (And then next week we’ll be back to our more typical discussion topics.)
Can we see the educational materials?
The educational materials are still in the works.
What we can say so far is that a primary goal is for them to be very succinct. Basically just, “what information does this person need to get started right now.” So the focus will be on a) what a Roth IRA is, how it works, etc, and b) what a target-date fund is, and why that’s often a good choice for retirement saving.
The final result will ultimately be made available on the Bogle Center website.
Why limit the program to one specific city (Boston)?
We did not limit the program to Boston because we personally prefer that location over any others. Of the six of us from the Bogle Center working on the program, none of us even live there. We partnered with the city of Boston, because their Summer Youth Employment Program is such a good match for Jonathan’s initial idea (key points being that they can identify participants who are from low-income backgrounds, yet who have have earned income themselves, such that they can contribute to a Roth IRA), and because they have volunteered to take on the “on the ground” role without any additional funding.
While we’d all love the idea of expanding beyond just one geographical location, the reality is that doing so would require a large inflow of funding — more, frankly, than we’re likely to see. A major part of the goal here — the reason it’s being done as a randomized controlled trial — is to really be able to see if a program like this is effective. And if it is, hopefully other (larger) entities could potentially implement such a thing on a larger scale.
Couldn’t you reach more people by doing just the educational piece, without the grants to recipients?
As Jonathan envisioned the program, it’s the grants themselves that are the core idea. Will providing an initial contribution be a meaningful motivator to get these young people to save/invest more? His initial idea is that it would be. That’s the intervention that is being tested. As you can read in J-PAL’s write-up, both the control group and the treatment group receive the educational materials and the opportunity to sit down with somebody to help them open a Roth IRA. The treatment group receives the financial contribution. The goal of the study is to determine whether that direct funding is meaningfully more impactful than just the educational side.
Other Recommended Reading
- How Jonathan Clements’ Advice Helped Scores of Investors, Including Me from Christine Benz
- When Does Housing Become THE Issue? from Ben Carlson
- Shadow Syndrome from Jim Dahle
- Build Some More Room for Error into Your Finances from Meg Bartelt
- 50 Years of the Vanguard Experiment from Allan Roth
- He Went in for a Colonoscopy. The Bill Was $19,000 from Harris Meyer
- How Much Have Social Security Claiming Ages Increased? from Anqi Chen, Alicia Munnell, and Nilufer Gok
Thanks for reading!
Hi. I'm Mike Piper, the author of this blog. I'm 
