Investing
Goodbye to Complacency: Financial Literacy Education in the U.S. 2000-2005
Research Report
September 2005
By Lois A. Vitt, Project Director
Gwen M. Reichbach, Jamie L. Kent, Jurg K. Siegenthaler
Institute for Socio Financial Studies, Middleburg, VA, USA
Since 2000, public and private sector organizations intensified and escalated their commitment to help Americans learn to manage, save, and invest their money. Personal finance education programs multiplied and spread across the U.S. even as consumer debt deepened, the stock market tanked in the 3rd quarter of 2000, terrorist attacks stunned the World on 9/11/2001, and the War on Terrorism commenced on two fronts. During the same period, corporate and other Wall Street scandals surfaced, policymakers clashed over Social Security reform, and to stay competitive, employers outsourced jobs and continued to transform pension and health benefits into models that require more money from, and more decision-making, by workers.
In 2005, nearly everyone understands that times have changed. Americans also are becoming increasingly aware that they must become more responsible for their own future financial well being. This report updates a study commissioned and published by the Fannie Mae Foundation in 2000, Personal Finance and the Rush to Competence: Financial Literacy Education in the United States. It is an overview of the proliferation and effectiveness of the personal financial education efforts undertaken during the past five years to help Americans achieve competence in personal finance.
* This study was presented as a working paper at the US-UK Dialogue on Pensions, cosponsored by AARP and EBRI, in association with the British Embassy and the UK Department for Work and Pensions.