Blog Action Day 2014 on Inequality, Financial and Life Literacy #BAD2014

About 20% of Americans have negative net worth. Their debts are greater than their assets.

A great part of this is lack of financial literacy. Other factors are lack of time management skills and making life choices that generally result in poverty.

Single mothers are more likely to be poor than married couples. The poverty rate for single-mother families in 2013 was 39.6%, nearly five times more than the rate (7.6%) for married-couple families. According to U.S. Census Bureau, out of 12 million single parent families in 2013, more than 80% were headed by single mothers.

There should be competitions with prizes (like the Xprize) to develop programs to get better results in correcting these issues.

Social safety nets that get better results in other countries should be considered and piloted.

Budgeting and [financial, life, career] planning should be raised to the level of importance as reading and writing.

The Financial Literacy Survey of 2014

* In 2014,about two in five U.S. adults (39%)–a proportion that has held roughly steady since 2007–say they have a budget and keep close track of their spending.

* The proportion of adults who are spending less compared to the previous year has continued to decline since 2009 when this question was first asked (57% 2009,51% 2010, 42% 2011, 39% 2012, 32% 2013, 29% 2014).

* Though more than half of adults (55%) say they are now saving the same as last year, the proportion who have non-retirement savings has decreased slightly from 69% in 2013 to 66% in 2014.

* When it comes to retirement savings, about one in three U.S. adults (32%) still do not save any portion of their household’s annual income. In fact, when asked what areas of personal finance are most worrisome, the top responses were: insufficient “rainy day” savings for an emergency (16%), and retiring without having enough money set aside (16%).

CreditCard Debt

* About one in three U.S. adults(34%)indicated their household carries credit card debt from month to month–a proportion that has steadily declined since 2009 when this question was first asked (44% 2009, 41% 2010, 40% 2011, 39% 2012, 37% 2013).

* Fifteen percent of adults–or more than 35 million people–roll over $2,500 or more in credit card each month.

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