Basic math and arithmetic are taught. We give people rope and if they hang themselves with it that’s on them.
If we wanted to do something about it then we need to look at schemes like the UK workplace pensions. It's compulsary for employers and opt-out for employees. It has resulted in many more people saving for retirement.
We give everyone the tools they need. If they are still incompetent that is on them.
You have to take an online course about understanding student loans and interest before you can accept a federal loan. The idea that students don’t know what they are getting into is absurd.
Not saying you're wrong btw, just throwing something out there.
And fundamentally I don’t understand how someone could be short on paying bills every single month and not think to themselves “gee maybe I should search the internet to help solve this repeated problem that I have.”
Somehow 33% of people can’t pay their bills every month but smartphone penetration is greater than 66%. How do so many people have access to the entire knowledge of humanity in the palm of their hand but also have not EVER searched on the internet for financial advice?
In a way, this appears to be a result of recency bias and our collective forgetting that preaching personal responsibility was once the norm in western societies. While I'm an atheist myself, long before there was any government social safety net, the church provided this safety net, but when it did, that safety net came with the expectation of learning lessons like "God helps those that help themselves".
As a society, yes it's important to have empathy for other who have made mistakes. Even Judeo-Christian religion makes room for this lesson through stories like the prodigal son. But you can't just have empathy without accountability unless you're willing to accept that more people will become a burden on the productive than if you have a culture of accountability.
You've got to have a balance between both empathy and accountability and squelching voices promoting accountability, but downvoting for example, throws this balance out of whack.
This isn't new, most religions have something to say about usary. If anything has changed it's the increase in media manipulation, marketing and easy credit. My parents didn't have a credit card because they didn't exist at that time.
At an individual level if you are over spending then yes, sort it out. But when half the population can't deal with a financial emergency then the problem is clearly systemic.
It’s not 1975. All of human knowledge is a few taps away. If you are ignorant on finance it is because you don’t care or don’t want to know. Either way, it’s on the individual.
You can't justify a laissez faire approach unless you also turn off the propaganda.
Financial literacy is about exercising self control and utilizing skills that are already taught and known.
Knowing how to think about your budget beyond the expenses that you have every single week or month.
Knowing how a credit card works and why that makes it dangerous. Knowing ways to avoid that danger (with or without a credit card).
Knowing what a bank account is for and how to open one.
Knowing what investing is, why it's a good thing, and where and how to get started with it.
Knowing what a credit score is, what goes into it, and why it's important.
Those are all important components of financial literacy. They involve knowledge that not everybody is exposed to. Using that knowledge does often require being able to add/subtract/multiply/divide.
But while math competency is necessary for successful budgeting and financial management, it is by no means sufficient for either.