It's called "asset building." It's driven by the states, not the federal government, and it represents the most significant change to social policy since President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, according to Stephen J. Brady, president of the anti-hunger Sodexho Foundation in Washington, D.C.

The foundation released a report Tuesday spotlighting asset building initiatives in 11 states. Performed by social scientists at Brandeis University, the study cites Utah legislation approved in 2003 to add financial literacy course work to the graduation requirements for high school students. Also noted are university and charity-run classes for adults on how to earn, save, spend and invest toward a better future.

Contributions from other states include: mandated minimum wage increases, income tax caps for the working poor, creative financing for child care grants and free tax preparation services for those entitled to federal Earned Income Tax Credits.

Hard work is no longer a sure-fire cure to poverty, as evidenced by America's ranks of working poor, said J. Larry Brown, director of Brandeis University's Institute on Assets and Social Policy.

"We have as high a percentage of people living in poverty as we had 30 years ago," said Brown. "We are really at a peak; not as high as during the Great Depression, but a peak."

Traditionally, social welfare programs have focused on propping up the poor with emergency cash, housing or food stamps. But in the wake of welfare reform, said Brown, states have begun to realize that a person's ability to escape poverty is directly linked to his or her assets.

"Assets can be an education, a skill, a decent income, a home or owning a retirement account; things that help most of us in the middle class" avoid financial ruin in the face of unemployment, illness or a natural disaster, said Brown. His research contains no proof that promoting asset building actually works.

Many programs still are in their infancy, said Brown's colleague and report author Sandra Venner. Financial literacy, she added, won't be required of Utah's high school students until next year.

But Venner said an innovation that Utah adopted from other states - Individual Development Accounts (IDA's) - have been shown to have merit. These accounts pair money management training with a savings account at a local bank that agrees to match monthly deposits of families struggling to save to buy a home, car or pay for medical expenses.

"Truth be told, some of these programs may prove to be not so good," said Brown. "What we can say is there's clearly something in the air. . . . We are clearly moving from a New Deal framework to something else."

kstewart@sltrib.com

Management training

For information on IDAs

and other money management

training for adults, visit:

http://www.utahissues.org, or http://www.schools.utah.gov/

ate/financiallit/index.htm.