Closing the income gap
What happens when young adults who were born into poverty are able to access money in adulthood? Entire communities rise with them. That’s the idea behind the Connecticut Wealth Accelerator’s Cash Catalyst program, which is sharing the lessons it learns to build wealth for generations.
“Eleven thousand dollars doesn’t solve poverty overnight, but it does break the intergenerational curse of people being born into debt situations, or people being born into neutral situations, and having nothing to start from,” Yaw Owusu-Boahen, director of the Connecticut Wealth Accelerator, said. “And so a whole generation of babies can be born into an actual inheritance that they’re born into, that they can use to build their wealth, and transform the path of their family and therefore the families around them and the communities that they would end up growing to serve.”
Cash Catalyst is the country’s first accelerated baby bonds program. In essence, it simulates what recipients of Connecticut’s first baby bonds can expect when they start to receive their baby bonds money in 15 years.
With investments from The Connecticut Project, ConnCAT and ConnCorp, William Casper Graustein Memorial Foundation, M&T Bank, and Edward Jones, the Cash Catalyst program mimics baby bonds by providing money now for people who would have qualified if the program had existed when they were born. Launched in August 2025, the Cash Catalyst program is working with people ages 18 to 30 years old in the greater New Haven area who have been recommended by partner organizations.
The Wealth Accelerator is taking lessons learned each month to the state treasurer, with the idea that learning how to support people now will help the state’s baby bond program to eventually benefit communities to the greatest degree possible.
Already, the Cash Catalyst program is seeing the difference cash can make – both in improving lives and in the potential downfalls if people aren’t prepared.
Owusu-Boahen said they’ve learned the importance of adding education alongside the cash. Participants attend six sessions on financial education and have access to digital tools. The program has also learned about how people may need relationships with banks or need to increase their credit score before the money arrives.
Last year, 52 people received $2,000 each in debt relief through Cash Catalyst, and 20 received $20,000. Owusu-Boahen said people have used that money to pay for their college tuition, start a business, or buy a home. One person who was being forced to decide between paying for their rent or tuition can now do both. Another is using the money to attend a nursing program.
Even $2,000 for debt relief has changed lives so far. Four of the financial education courses are about debt, including interest rates and compound interest. He said one participant used $1,000 of the $2,000 to pay off debt, and helped their mother with $500.
“And for that person, it didn’t radically transform their lives, but it was a great opportunity to be able to be someone that can support their parents, feel a little bit liberated in terms of the credit situation they faced, and also just increase their credit score as well by continuing to clear off that past debt,” Owusu-Boahen said.
When it comes to building wealth, that infusion of cash will transform entire communities – hopefully closing the racial wealth gap.
“If you think about the wealth building scale, it doesn’t just change that person’s life,” Owusu-Boahen said. “It changes the lives of everyone around them and their children.”