Staggering
Statistics Reveal a Huge Lack of Financial Literacy and Consumer Credit
Education in the United States.
Financial Literacy and Education:
93 percent want
Financial Literacy taught in high school, but currently only FOUR states require high school
students to take a semester-long course in personal finance.
(Visa, Back to School Survey Shows
Americans Want Personal Finance Taught in the Classroom, July 20, 2010,http://www.practicalmoneyskills.com/about/press/releases_2010/0720.php)
41 percent of
U.S. adults, or more than 92 million people living in America, gave themselves
a grade of C, D, or F on their knowledge of personal finance, suggesting there
is considerable room for improvement. This number is highest among Gen Y adults
at 47 percent. 80 percent of adults agree that they would benefit from advice
and answers to everyday financial questions from a professional, and more than one-third
(35 percent) strongly agree.
(The 2009 Consumer Financial Literacy
Survey Topline Report and Data Sheet, The National Foundation For Credit
Counseling, http://www.nfcc.org/NewsRoom/FinancialLiteracy/files/2009FinancialLiteracySurvey.pdf)
·
Almost one-third
of college students, when reflecting back on their freshman year, admit that
they were not very well prepared for personal money management on campus.
(KeyBank and conducted by Harris Interactive)
·
41 percent of the
young adults in Generation Y (ages eighteen to twenty-none) do not pay their
bills on time every month.
(2008 Financial
Literacy Survey National Foundation for Credit Counseling, Inc. and MSN Money)
·
A
poll from Gallup shows that 32 percent of Americans put together a budget each
month to track income and expenditures, and just 30 percent have a long-term
financial plan laying out savings and investment goals.
Credit Score:
·
In spite of it
being free, nearly two-thirds (64 percent), or 144 million people have not
ordered a copy of their credit report in the past year, this number grows to
three quarters (72 percent) among Hispanic Americans. Additionally, more than one-third (37 percent) admit
that they do not know their Credit Score.
(The 2009 Consumer Financial Literacy
Survey Topline Report and Data Sheet, The National Foundation For Credit
Counseling)
Housing:
·
42 percent of
adults, or more than 94 million people, currently have a home mortgage and, of
those, 28 percent say that the terms of their mortgage somehow turned out to be
different than they expected, including: either payment or terms of loan were
different than expected, the interest rate or its duration were different, or
they had no knowledge of PMI.
·
(The 2009 Consumer Financial Literacy
Survey Topline Report and Data Sheet, The National Foundation For Credit
Counseling)
Debt and Credit Cards:
·
26 percent, or
more than 58 million adults, admit to not paying all of their bills on time.
Among African-Americans, this number is at 51 percent. In the last 12 months,
15 percent of adults, or nearly 34 million people, have been late making a
credit card payment and 8 percent (18 million people) have missed a payment
entirely. More than 13 million adults (6 percent) report that their household
carries credit card debt of $10,000 or more from month to month, and the same
number have debts in collection, are seriously considering filing for
bankruptcy, or have already done so within the past three years.
(The 2009 Consumer Financial Literacy
Survey Topline Report and Data Sheet, The National Foundation For Credit
Counseling, http://www.nfcc.org/NewsRoom/FinancialLiteracy/files/2009FinancialLiteracySurvey.pdf)
Budgeting:
·
Only 42 percent
of adults keep close track of their spending. Nearly 16 million adults (7 percent)
don’t know how much they spend on food, housing, and entertainment, do not
monitor their spending.
(The 2009 Consumer Financial Literacy
Survey Topline Report and Data Sheet, The National Foundation For Credit
Counseling)
Savings:
·
One-third of adults
(32 percent), or 72 million people, report that they have no savings. Nearly
half (48 percent) of Gen Y adults- more than any other age group- report having
no savings. Of those with no savings, more than one in four report that, if
faced with an emergency, they would charge that expense to a credit card (29
percent) or take out a loan (26 percent), thus adding to their debt load.
(The 2009 Consumer Financial Literacy
Survey Topline Report and Data Sheet, The National Foundation For Credit
Counseling)
Retirement:
·
One-third of
adults (33 percent), or more than 74 million people, do not put any part of
their annual household income toward retirement.
(The 2009 Consumer Financial Literacy
Survey Topline Report and Data Sheet, The National Foundation For Credit
Counseling)
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