Think financial literacy was low? It’s gotten lower

An annual survey from TIAA Institute finds that 23% of adults couldn’t even get seven out of 28 questions right.

More U.S. adults have a very low level of financial literacy than in any year since 2017, according to a study conducted jointly by the TIAA Institute and the Global Financial Literacy Excellence Center at the George Washington University School of Business.

The annual study’s barometer of financial literacy, based on a 28-question survey, found that adults correctly answered only one-half of the questions, on average, a figure that has changed little over time, TIAA said in a release.

Perhaps more disturbing, 23% of the adults, more than in any previous survey, couldn’t correctly answer more than seven of the 28 questions.

Comprehending risk remains the area where functional knowledge tends to be lowest; only around one-third of these questions were answered correctly.

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Financial literacy tends to be particularly low among those in early adulthood. Gen Z and Gen Y correctly answered only about 45% of the survey questions

The 2022 index was fielded in January and included more than 3,500 responses from four race and ethnic groups and five generations.

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