Financial literacy in the U.S. has stagnated in the last eight years: Data from the TIAA Institute put the national score at 49%, which is the same number researchers recorded in 2017. Despite much progress in financial wellness apps, workplace benefits pushes, and mandatory disclosure requirements, something in how financial information gets communicated isn’t working, and the data below points to what does work.
This roundup pulls together 20 financial literacy statistics that matter most right now for financial institutions: where the gaps are widest, what they’re costing people and the institutions that serve them, and where the data suggests the fix isn’t necessarily more information, but better delivery.
Financial literacy in the U.S. has stalled
1. The national financial literacy score has been flat at 49% since 2017. The 2025 TIAA Institute-GFLEC Personal Finance Index tested U.S. adults on 28 questions spanning eight personal finance topics. The average correct rate was 49%, statistically unchanged from when the same index started measuring it eight years ago.
2. Gen Z scored lowest of any generation, at 38%. Many respondents in that cohort answered seven or fewer of the 28 questions correctly. It’s the group entering the workforce, opening their first retirement accounts, and signing up for employer benefits right now, with the least grounding to do it confidently.
3. Even the best-performing generation gets less than half right. Baby Boomers led all generations in the same P-Fin Index at 55%, the strongest showing, and still a failing grade by most standards. If the most financially seasoned generation misses close to half the questions, the problem isn’t limited to first-time earners.
4. The U.S. ranks behind Germany, Israel, New Zealand, and Norway on financial literacy. S&P Global’s FinLit Survey, still the most recent study of its kind conducted at a global scale, put U.S. adult financial literacy at 57%. That’s ahead of the two-thirds of adults worldwide who don’t clear the bar, but behind several peer economies with less complex financial systems to navigate.
Retirement confidence is the weakest spot
5. Retirement questions are the hardest topic on the test. Adults answered just 37% of retirement-specific questions correctly in the same TIAA/GFLEC study, worse than every other category, including insurance and investing.
6. Roughly a third of adults have no dedicated retirement savings. The Federal Reserve’s Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking found that only 67% of adults have assets specifically designated for retirement income, i.e., a tax-preferred account or pension, meaning close to a third have no dedicated savings to fall back on.
7. Only 35% of non-retirees think their retirement plan is on track. That’s an improvement from the pandemic-era low, per the same Federal Reserve household finance data. However, it still means roughly two out of three working adults don’t feel confident they’re saving enough.
8. Personalized education can shift these numbers. SundaySky’s customer data reflects this. In work with a leading 401(k) recordkeeper, participants who received personalized video explaining vesting schedules, catch-up contributions, and investment basics enrolled at three times the rate of those who received standard communications, with deferral rates doubling.
Curious what personalized video can do for your organization? Download How Financial Services Companies Win with Personalized Video and AI.
The gender and generational divide
9. Men score 8 points higher than women on the same literacy test. The 2025 TIAA Institute-GFLEC Personal Finance Index found men answered 53% of questions correctly on average, compared with 45% for women, a gap that held up even after researchers controlled for age, education, and income.
10. Women are half as likely as men to reach the top literacy tier. In the same study, 22% of men scored in the “very high literacy” range, compared with 11% of women, so the gap widens rather than narrows as the questions get harder.
11. The gap is widest on saving and investing, not general money knowledge. Women scored 10 points lower than men on savings questions and 15 points lower on investing questions, the two subject areas where the P-Fin Index’s gender gap is largest.
What confusion costs, in dollars
12. Poor financial literacy costs the average American $948 in 2025. The National Financial Educators Council’s annual survey puts the national total at more than $246 billion, based on responses from 1,200 U.S. adults about money lost to fees, poor decisions, and missed opportunities tied to financial knowledge gaps.
13. A third of credit card holders can’t answer a basic compound interest question. S&P Global’s FinLit data found that 34% of U.S. credit card holders got a simple compound-interest problem wrong, a specific, testable failure point behind much avoidable card debt.
14. Low financial literacy roughly doubles the odds of carrying too much debt. The same TIAA Institute-GFLEC research found adults with very low financial literacy are twice as likely to be debt-constrained and three times more likely to be financially fragile than adults with very high literacy scores.
Employers are absorbing the cost of low financial literacy
15. Nearly half of employees get no help picking their benefits at all. A 2026 SAVVI Financial survey found 46% of employees received no guidance during their most recent benefits enrollment, and 32% say they would have made different elections if they’d gotten meaningful guidance beforehand.
16. The share of workers asking employers for financial help doubled in two years. Bank of America’s 2025 workplace benefits research found 26% of employees sought near-term financial guidance (emergency savings, debt repayment, budgeting), up from 13% in 2023.
17. Two out of five employees don’t feel equipped to manage their own money. PwC’s 2026 Employee Financial Wellness Survey found 41% of employees feel their education or background left them inadequately prepared for financial management, while 48% say they’re highly motivated to learn the skills they’re missing.
18. Financial stress costs employers roughly 8% of worker productivity. A 2025 Valoir report on employee financial wellness, based on a survey of more than 500 U.S. employees, found the average worker spends 3.3 hours a week handling personal financial matters on the clock, with workers under the highest stress showing measurably lower output.
19. 79% of Millennials and Gen Z say social media shapes their financial education. PYMNTS Intelligence research found that the large majority of younger consumers are exposed to curated financial content through social media algorithms, and separately reports that 34% specifically follow unlicensed “finfluencers” for financial advice—a trust shift away from their own bank, insurer, or retirement provider that happened because social platforms answer questions in a format people will actually watch.
20. 63% of people would rather learn about a product or service from a short video than any other format. Wyzowl’s 2026 consumer survey found video beat text articles (12%), infographics (7%), and webinars (4%) by a wide margin, and 93% of video marketers say video measurably increases how well their audience understands the material.
What the stats above point to is that people aren’t avoiding financial education. Rather, they’re getting it from whatever source answers their question in a format they’re already engaging with, and increasingly, that source isn’t their bank, insurer, or retirement provider.
Enterprise teams should treat this as a format-and-relevance problem rather than a content volume problem. The institutions making progress at narrowing the gap aren’t publishing more, but replacing the static statement, the generic reminder email, and the one-size-fits-all disclosure with personalized, engaging content created from each person’s account, balance, and next step.
SundaySky’s platform renders that kind of individually personalized video at the scale banks, insurers, and retirement providers need without requiring a dedicated production team to keep up with it.
See 5 ways to strengthen your financial literacy program with video for practical next steps.
Frequently asked questions
How much does poor financial literacy cost the average person?
The National Financial Educators Council’s 2025 survey put the average cost at $948 per U.S. adult for the year, driven by fees, missed savings opportunities, and financial decisions made without enough information to evaluate them properly. That figure is trending down: it was $1,015 in 2024 and peaked at $1,819 in 2022, though the survey’s authors caution that a lower per-person number doesn’t mean the underlying literacy problem is improving, since the adult population keeps growing. Multiplied across that population, the 2025 figure adds up to more than $246 billion lost nationally in a single year, based on a survey of 1,200 U.S. adults conducted in December 2025.
Does video really improve financial understanding, or is that just a marketing claim?
Wyzowl’s 2026 consumer survey found 93% of video marketers report video increases their audience’s understanding of a product or service, and 63% of consumers say they’d choose a short video over text, an infographic, or a webinar when learning about something new. SundaySky’s customer data shows a similar pattern, specifically in financial services: personalized video explaining retirement plan mechanics, including vesting schedules and catch-up contributions, drove 3x the enrollment rate compared with standard written communications for the same program.
What’s the difference between financial literacy and financial confidence?
Confidence measures how informed someone feels about a financial topic; literacy measures what they know and can apply. Ideally, financially literate customers have a solid grasp of how their account, policy, or plan works. That distinction matters for anyone measuring a financial education program by satisfaction scores alone, since feeling informed and being informed can move in opposite directions.
Conclusion
Financial literacy scores haven’t moved because the way this information gets delivered hasn’t changed enough to matter. If your team is rethinking how account statements, retirement enrollment, or policy explanations reach customers who’d rather watch than read, SundaySky’s guide to personalized video for financial services walks through what that looks like in practice.
Ready to see what personalized video could do for your onboarding, retirement, or claims communications? Book a demo with SundaySky to walk through it with your own data.
