Florida’s Financial Literacy Act is a gift for the younger generation

Do you want to do something patriotic? Teach young people to manage their money and plan for their future. This is because American report cards on financial literacy are not encouraging.

According to the website Moneyzine, the number of adults in the US with low financial literacy has increased from 20% in 2017 to 25% in 2023. Individual savings rates remain relatively low compared to the historic standard of 4.6% – 10% or more in January.

Meanwhile, the United States has an incredible national debt of $36 trillion, with the majority of its federal budget funded by Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

Considering what drives the costs of these programs (such as life expectancy and population trends), the American social safety net has a serious emphasis. Future generations need to take more responsibility for financial futures.

Ours is a consumer economy, and young consumers are being fired in social media posts celebrating spending. Unfortunately, these posts do not have a disclaimer on how credit card debts were paid.

Money now exists in the digital world with services like Venmo, Apple Pay and Tap-to-Pay. There is no checkbook to consider checks and balance. When you’re young and making money, it’s easy to think of you as always at work, and the recession was something that happened a long time ago.

Along with our financial freedom, we have a responsibility to be as independent as possible.

Learning to build a simple budget is awareness, salary, taxes, rent, savings. You will soon begin to see that a cup of coffee at home may be better than running to a corner coffee shop. You can learn the concept of compound interest and how to invest a dollar per day at 25, and you can turn that dollar to over $150 on retirement.

Better News: The opportunities to build wealth are more accessible than ever. The markets that were traditionally reserved for the wealthy have been democratized and are now accessible to even the smallest savings. There are countless tools available to help young people invest, make simple financial plans, and pay to give them the opportunity they didn’t have, as well as the inevitable rainy days.

During my civil servants, I learned that not all children are raised with parents who understand basic financial management and budgets. Sometimes parents never taught themselves.

That’s one of the great things about public education. It can level the children’s playing field by teaching more practical life skills. Florida has already taken a step.

Thanks to the advocacy of the late Senator Dorothy Fukill, the state’s Financial Literacy Act, which signed the law in 2022, requires high school students to take the Financial Literacy course before graduation. We hope that educators will invite professionally successful people into the classroom to help these lessons resonate with their children.

The more we empower the next generation with tools to manage our money responsibly, the stronger and safer we will be.

Florida Senate President Tom Lee is CEO of the Pepin Household Office and oversees the family’s continued investment in Tampa Bay.