The Center for Economic and Entrepreneurial Literacy recently conducted a survey about personal finance and economic issues. They released the results today and emphasized that Americans need more financial literacy education.

Some of the results include:

  • 53 percent don’t know what the Dow Jones Industrial Average is
  • 52 percent can’t describe the advantages of a Roth IRA
  • 43 percent can’t identify the FICO score as the most important factor in receiving a loan
  • 76 percent don’t know that when you need short-term emergency cash, bouncing a check costs more than wire transfers and short-term payday loans
  • 71 percent of people severely underestimate the amount of time it takes to pay off a credit card balance making only minimum payments

CEEL says these results show how Americans are unable to answer even some of the most basic personal finance questions.

“Economic Literacy Month” begins in April.

March 31, 2009