Mental health consumers depend on social benefits in the forms of supplemental security income and social security disability insurance for their livelihood. Although these programs pay meager benefits, little research has been undertaken into how this population makes ends meet. Using a qualitative approach, this study asks what are the financial coping strategies of mental health consumers? Seven approaches were identified: subsidies, cost-effective shopping, budgeting, prioritizing, technology, debt management, and saving money. Results illustrate the resourcefulness of mental health consumers in managing meager social benefits and highlight the need to strengthen community mental health efforts with financial capabilities education.

This scoping review assesses the state of scholarly literature on financial exclusion in OECD member countries to identify key concepts, gaps in the research, and types and sources of evidence to inform an agenda for advancing research, practice, and policy. The authors searched eight databases using 13 terms. The researchers extracted data for five concepts: financial inclusion conceptualization, financial inclusion measurement, financial inclusion mechanisms, financial exclusion conceptual, descriptive or empirical content, and financial capability conceptualization or measurement. This article reports on data coded only for financial exclusion conceptual, descriptive, or empirical content. The researchers identified N = 148 studies for inclusion. The majority of the studies were conceptual and were focused on either the USA or the UK. Aspects of financial exclusion that were well covered in the literature include the conceptualization, contributors, and impacts of financial exclusion. Less covered were measurement, prevention, and contemporary practice trends in financial exclusion.

Social media is a rapidly expanding set of technology tools that people use to communicate, learn, interact, document, create, and participate in societies worldwide. It is also transforming how social work, among other professions, conducts qualitative research. This study outlines a field-tested method used to analyze data from Reddit, a major social media platform used by 6% of online adults in the United States. It provides a step-by-step account of a Reddit-based qualitative thematic analysis from a social work heuristic lens on the subject of poverty. To our knowledge, no such account of mining social media big data from Reddit for social work practice exists in the literature. Philosophical, ethical, and practical considerations of this method are discussed.

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Low-income communities in the United States have faced a history of financial marginalization and exploitation, most evident today in the proliferation of predatory financial services, such as payday lending and check-cashing services. Ameliorating the negative effects of predatory lending has become increasingly important on the agenda of community development efforts and the field of social work. Through the use of case studies, this article describes three specific strategies that communities use to increase financial inclusion and buffer against the deleterious effects of predatory lending: inclusion, community-based alternatives, and community advocacy.