MyMoney Resources - Researcher

The Make Your Path (MY Path) initiative provides disadvantaged youth with peer-led financial capability trainings, a savings account at a mainstream financial institution and incentives to set and meet savings goals. The program focuses on youth earning their first paycheck—a critical “teachable moment” to promote savings and connect youth with mainstream financial products. In 2011-12, Mission SF Community Financial Center (Mission SF) tested MY Path by delivering its suite of services to ten agencies participating in San Francisco’s largest youth employment program, the Mayor’s Youth Employment and Education Program (MYEEP). Participants saved an average of $507 over a six-month period and youth demonstrated increases in financial knowledge, reports of positive financial behaviors, and confidence about making financial decisions and doing business with a mainstream financial institution.

Over the last several decades, there has been a well-documented trend away from defined benefit plans toward defined contribution plans, in which an employee's retirement income depends on contributions to the plan along with the investment earnings on those contributions. Current workers increasingly must decide how much to contribute to retirement plans and how to invest plan contributions. By understanding which personal characteristics are associated with financial literacy, policymakers may target limited education resources to individuals with psychosocial traits that indicate risk for low financial literacy and insufficient retirement planning. Traditional, prior research on financial literacy has examined the impact of mainstay economic variables. This study examines the impact of previously unexplored variables- financial satisfaction, hopelessness and religiosity-on financial literacy. The study uses Health and Retirement (HRS) data and finds that financial satisfaction and religiosity are both significant independent predictors of financial literacy.

The majority of research on the retirement decision has focused on the health and wealth aspects of retirement. Such research concludes that people in better health and those enjoying a higher socioeconomic status tend to work longer than their less healthy and less wealthy counterparts. While financial and health concerns are a major part of the retirement decision, there are other issues that may affect the decision to retire that are unrelated to an individual’s financial and health status. Judgment and decision-making and behavioral-economics research suggests that there may be a number of behavioral factors influencing the retirement decision. The author reviews and highlights such factors and offers a unique perspective on potential determinants of retirement behavior, including anchoring and framing effects, affective forecasting, hyperbolic discounting, and the planning fallacy. The author then describes findings from previous research and draws novel connections between existing decision-making research and the retirement decision.

Traditional economic theory posits that people make decisions by maximizing a utility function in which all of the relevant constraints and preferences are included and weighed appropriately. Behavioral economists and decision-making researchers, however, are interested in how people make decisions in the face of incomplete information, limited cognitive resources, and decision biases. Empirical findings in the areas of behavioral economics and judgment and decision making (JDM) demonstrate departures from the notion that man is economically rational, illustrating instead that people often act in ways that are economically suboptimal. This article outlines findings from the JDM and behavioral-economics literatures that highlight the many behavioral impediments to saving that individuals may encounter on their way to financial security. I discuss how behavioral and psychological issues, such as self-control, emotions, and choice architecture can help policymakers understand what factors, aside from purely economic ones, may affect individuals’ savings behavior.

Increased policy and academic attention has been placed on promoting retirement savings early in the life course. This study investigates the extent to which retirement savings behavior among young persons, a population for which retirement savings is important but typically low, differs by marital status. We draw national survey data on young adult households (ages 22 – 35; N = 3,894) from the U.S. Federal Reserve Board’s Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF). Results reveal considerable differences by marital status. Controlling for important characteristics, young adults who were married were more likely than all other groups (including cohabitors) to perceive retirement as an important savings goal and to have an individual retirement account. Married persons were more likely than their single counterparts to participate in a defined contribution pension plan. Single women fared particularly poorly on retirement savings outcomes. A range of possible theoretical links between marriage and retirement savings at young adulthood are discussed.

Minority groups, particularly Hispanics and Blacks, are less likely to use formal financial advice compared to their White counterparts and have lower levels of financial literacy on average. This gap in literacy may have important implications for savings, investing, and retirement planning. To better reach these groups and improve financial literacy, the literature recommends making access to financial education easier, targeting the education to the population, and delivering it through preferred methods. Although they have not been thoroughly evaluated for effectiveness, this chapter provides an overview of several promising, real-world financial education initiatives targeted toward minority populations.

This article provides a plain-language description of behavioral economics and the role of common biases in financial decisionmaking, and reviews ways in which the findings of behavioral economics can help structure financial education and public policy.

This short article briefly summarizes and provides a link to the final report on the FDIC Survey of Bank Efforts to Serve the Unbanked and Underbanked. The survey was conducted in 2008 and the report was released in 2009. The FDIC retained Dove Consulting to help administer the survey of banks during 2008. The voluntary survey consisted of mail-in questionnaires administered to a stratified random sample of about 1,300 banks. The nationally representative sample was selected from the population of federally insured banks and thrifts with retail branch operations. In all, 685 complete surveys were returned, including 24 of the 25 largest banks. The survey finds that while most banks are aware that their market areas include significant unbanked and underbanked populations, relatively few have made it a strategic priority to target these market segments. In addition, while a number of banks are trying to reach the unbanked and underbanked, relatively few participate in the types of outreach that are thought to be particularly effective. The survey findings also indicate that although banks recognize the challenges associated with doing business with unbanked and underbanked individuals, they are making some progress in improving the accessibility of banking services.

This article presents best practices and lessons learnt from on the experiences of the National Endowment for Financial Education® (NEFE), a private, nonprofit, nonpartisan and noncommercial foundation committed to increas- ing access to financial education and to empowering in- dividuals to make positive and sound financial decision. These lessons include tailoring programs to the needs of different market segments; delivering education continuously through different life stages and at "teachable moments"; recognizing the importance of partnerships; paying attention to the repetition and targeting of messages and focusing on evaluation and behavioral change.

This study analyzes the impact of the FDIC’s Money Smart financial education curriculum and training on the financial opinions and behaviors of course participants. The study collected data from 631 adult respondents who experienced some portion of the Money Smart program during 2004-2005 and also completed a pre-training survey, post-training survey, and telephone follow-up survey. The data indicate that Money Smart financial education training positively affected consumer behaviors as measured through self-reported responses to survey questions 6-12 months after completing the training. Among the significant findings were that participants were more likely to open deposit accounts, save money in a mainstream deposit product, use and adhere to a budget, and have increased confidence in their financial abilities when contacted six to twelve months after completing the Money Smart course than they were before taking the course.