Wealth Inequality in America

[Egann]

sc94597 said:

Egann said:

The real problem is the millions of people who don't know how to make a comfortable beginning with money and can't make the common sense decisions to keep it once they've got it. In so many words, the culture of poverty. The combination of having nothing and knowing how to make nothing is uniquely unfair. 

Is that not an education problem, then? Possibly an emphasis on economics and finance in grade school could fix this. If one looks at other schooling and educations sytems in the world, especially privately competitive/subsidy based ones (Hong Kong, Japan, etc) one notes these courses in their curriculums and it reflects in the responsible activities of their societies. 

http://money.msn.com/investing/why-high-school-kids-are-financially-illiterate

If the U.S. education system can't teach Johnny how to read, it's not surprising it can't teach him how to balance his checkbook or calculate compound interest.

A report out this month from the Champlain College Center for Financial Literacy (CFL) in Vermont finds that the vast majority of states are doing a poor or mediocre job of educating high school students in key financial skills. The report card, which awarded each state a letter grade, gave 60% of the states a C or less; 44% of those received D or F grades.

John Pelletier, director of the CFL and author of the 2013 National Report Card on State Efforts to Improve Financial Literacy in High Schools, argues that to make programs successful at the high school level, "financial literacy topics must be taught in a course that students are required to take as a graduation requirement."

 

Partly, but it's also because some of the subcultures in the United States don't value money skills while others do. It could sure use being taught in school, though.