The American Dream, I’m sure that that all of us knows what it is, what it means to us,
and what it means to the American people. And we all know that it is no easy thing to attain for
that it will take hard work, determination, and probably many years of our lives. We all know
that there will be complications preventing us, such as our financial issues. Millions of
Americans are suffering from their financial issues every day, millions are going in debt or are
already in debt and millions are dealing with a tremendous amount of stress because of it. There
are many reasons why many Americans are financially troubled such as the lack of financial
literacy in America, lack of financial management , and the poor investments that many
Americans make. For those of you who do not know what financial literacy, it’s basically the
understanding of various financial areas and there are many Americans that lack this (also known
as financial capability). Speaking on financial literacy, there are many Americans that do not
know how to manage their finances properly which leads to a great deal of stress on them. In
addition, Americans are wasting the money that they need by making investments and hardly
gaining anything in return. Therefore, if we want to live in a society where we don’t have to
worry about our financial difficulties then we must wake up and start realizing our financial
problems and what is causing them.
First of all, financial literacy is an essential life skill and the main reason why many
Americans lack this is because of poor education. Financial teachings in school have
significantly decreased over the years. In an article called “Financial Literacy in America:
Individual Choices and National Consequences” it clearly states that the “The visibility of
financial literacy as a major national issue has increased significantly during the last decade”.
Furthermore, from the document “PISA 2012 Results: Students and Money”, it created a survey
about financial literacy for U.S. high school students and found out that about forty-four percent
of them had scores that placed them at the lowest levels of financial literacy. For those of you
that disagrees with this, even the government thinks lack of financial literacy is a growing issue.
The government has tried many ways of fixing it, one big thing they did was the signing of
executive order 13530. Executive order 13530 was the creation of the U.S. President’s Advisory
Council on Financial Literacy and they say that:
“While the crisis has many causes, it is undeniable that financial illiteracy is one
of the root causes... Sadly, far too many Americans do not have the basic financial skills
necessary to develop and maintain a budget, to understand credit, to understand
investment vehicles, or to take advantage of our banking system”.
In addition, in the article “Americans’ Financial Capability”, by Annamaria Lusardi, it
conducted a series of experiments to discover the financial capability...
