Right Column

California Financial Literacy Month (CFLM)

National Facts:

A study completed in 2006 by the Jump$tart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy found that high school seniors know less about principles of basic personal finance than did high school seniors seven years earlier, and the average scores in both years were failing grades;

Nearly 55 percent of college students acquire their first credit card during their first year in college, and 92 percent of college students acquire at least one credit card by their second year in college, yet only 26 percent of people between the ages of 13 and 21 reported that their parents actively taught them how to manage money;

United States consumer debt totaled $2,400,000,000,000 in 2006, of which credit card debt alone exceeded $825,000,000,000;

Personal savings in the U.S. as a percentage of income dropped to negative 1 percent in 2006, the lowest since the Great Depression;

Although more than 42,000,000 people in the U.S. participate in qualified cash or deferred arrangements described in section 401(k) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 (commonly referred to as '401(k) plans'), a Retirement Confidence Survey conducted in 2004 found that only 42 percent of workers surveyed have calculated how much money they will need to save for retirement and 37 percent of workers say that they are not currently saving for retirement;

The average baby boomer has only $50,000 in savings apart from equity in their homes;

Whereas a study by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants found that 55 percent of people between the ages of 25 and 34 maintain an interest-bearing account or other savings instrument, a decrease of 10 percent since 1985;

Studies show that as many as 10,000,000 households in the U.S. are 'unbanked' or are without access to mainstream financial products and services.