Yes, basic money management skills should be taught in school, but let’s recognize that whether we like it or not, these are ‘use it or lose it’ lessons. If high school kids learn about credit cards, credit scores, investing, membership, and more in their teens, but they don’t have the opportunity to put those skills to good use before they age 20 years old, they won’t be much better. fitted that someone who had no lessons but simply Googled “good credit habits” and clicked to read the relevant results.

In fact, a well-known 2014 study showed that once a person is about two years out of financial education, they forgot the lessons they were taught.

As money management and technology evolves, so do consumers and their interest in taking healthy financial action.

Most financial literacy efforts date back to the 1980s and 1990s, when the investment climate in the United States was changing dramatically. Workers lost pension security and were brought into defined contribution plans, where what they received in retirement depended on what they put aside while they worked.

If they didn’t learn to save, they would end up depending entirely on Social Security in retirement, rather than using government payments to supplement their income as planned.

With every systemic financial problem – like the dot-com bubble burst in 2000 or the 2008 financial crisis – and the accompanying spooky studies of consumer savings and investment account balances, U.S. businesses have intensified their literacy efforts.