Talking Tax Time with Cathie Mahon: $ave NYC

The third, and final, installment in our “Talking Tax Time” series is here for your enjoyment. In this episode, our own David Newville sits down with Cathie Mahon, Director of the Office of Financial Empowerment (OFE) in the New York City Mayor’s office.

OFE has created a unique program called “$ave NYC” which is a matched-savings program targeted to low-income tax filers at tax time. If those tax filers deposit some of their refund into a CD-style account, and keep the money in the account for 12 months, OFE will provide a 50% match on those funds. “$ave NYC” is a real-life, working version of the Saver’s Bonus proposal put forward by the Asset Building team.

In the clip, Cathie and David discuss the genesis of “$ave NYC,” it’s scalability, and the results from the early runs of the program. Cathie believes the program shows that low-income tax filers can and will save given the opportunity to do so and discusses some of the motivating factors for the participants.