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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.

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.

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.

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.

Tips to help you avoid spending more than you have to — or responding to a bogus offer posted by a scammer.

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.

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.

This article discusses the results of and lessons learnt from the Financial Opportunities Project (FOP), a comprehensive effort by the Center for Economic Progress identify, implement, and disseminate strategies for integrating financial services and asset-building opportunities with community-based tax-preparation services at IRS Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) sites.

This article provides a brief overview of the field of financial education and explores some of the challenges and potential solutions. The author describes developments in the contemporary financial education movement since the 1990s and the background economic changes that stimulated its growth; reviews currently available financial education initiatives for youth and adults and discusses the evidence about its effectiveness as well as broader challenges for the field. The article concludes by highlighting both general and specific examples of efforts to move the field forward.