April is National Financial Literacy Month. In a recent report released by WalletHub, Utah ranked fourth in the nation for financial literacy.
The organization assessed the financial literacy of individuals with questions on topics like interest, stocks and investing. The report also analyzed financial education and consumer habits.
“After the Great Recession, it was really clear that people needed to learn more about financial literacy," said Jill Gonzalez, a WalletHub analyst. "And I think that we’ve come a long way from that, but not necessarily far enough. We ended last year with a record high in credit card debt. So it seems like across the country, we’re kind of forgetting of what the Great Recession taught us in terms of financial lessons.”
Gonzalez said Utah doesn’t seem to be following the national trend. It ranked number one out of 51 when it comes to financial planning and habits, and number three for results on the survey.
The state did rank 47 on financial knowledge and education, however, Gonzalez said this isn’t necessarily an outlier.
“These states that do have that low financial knowledge or education ranking,” she said, “rely more so on families to instill those values in their children and then to pass them on that debt is bad, saving more than spending is good, etc. So relying really more so on a family dynamic than a schooling dynamic for the education and financial literacy component.”
Gonzalez said individuals struggling with debt may find the survey data useful for identifying areas of financial literacy to improve in their own lives by looking at the areas their state struggles with as a whole.
