Do you know what the Dow Jones Industrial Average is? Congratulations! Because among your fellow Americans, this knowledge puts you in an elite minority. This week Econ4U released the results of our semi-annual Economic Literacy Survey. And once again our findings demonstrate that Americans still lack a basic understanding of economics and personal finance.
When you consider that the nightly news uses the Dow as a representation for the strength/weakness of the economy (despite the indicators flaws, but that is a topic for another post) it is shocking that most Americans couldn’t identify it out of a list of four choices. 1 in 10 survey participants thought the Dow averaged the price of commodities like gold and sugar!
Here are the quick hit results from the survey. Click here if you want to see the full roster of questions and results.
- 53% of respondents did not know what the Dow Jones Industrial Average was.
- 52% could not describe the advantages of a Roth IRA
- 43% did not know that their FICO score is the most important factor in getting a loan.
- 76% did not know that when in need of short-term emergency cash, bouncing a check costs more than wire transfers and short-term payday loans.
- 71% of people severely underestimated the amount of time it would take to pay off a credit card balance only making the minimum payments.
4 Comments
There are two things I’ve long thought should be taught in all high schools: economics and physical education.
Give them at least some idea what the presidential candidates are talking about when they talk about the economy and get their chubby little selves out there and get in shape.
They don’t care about Huckleberry Finn anyway.
Americans have always been financially illiterate.
Money is something everybody complains about and we still don’t think it’s a good enough idea to teach our kids about in school. This is completely asinine. If teachers taught students a FICO score was a more important number than a SSN and why, it’s unimaginable how many people would be living better lives.
I took personal finance in high school, and I learned a lot of principles that I still find useful today. Doesn’t everyone take personal finance in high school? How sad.
Instead of learning about things such as Biology or Chemistry in high school, there should be a financial literacy course. These concepts are so basic, yet vital to the future of any individual and of the economy. Once one has a foundation of such concepts, they are much more adept to learn any other concept using the same type of jargon.
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