082 Financial Excellence: Financial Literacy in the Workplace

Episode 82: Money Smart Week Wrap Up and Promoting Financial Literacy in the Workplace, Oct. 18, 2011.
Last week Kevin Suddick (our lead financial coach) and I attended the Wisconsin Summit on Financial Literacy. Today we recap some of the things we learned.
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Show notes:
Money Smart Week is moving to April 2012 and will be a larger, nation-wide push for financial literacy.
Financial coaches can and should be a part of Money Smart Week. Get involved at www.moneysmartweek.org
Why should you attend a Money Smart event? We give lots of reasons why.
The Wisconsin Dept. of Financial Literacy (DFI) is making a concerted effort to promote financial literacy in the workplace. Why is that important? Consider the following stats (from the DFI):
55% of Wisconsin residents spend as much or less than they make.
57% of WI residents have no rainy day fund.
19% of WI residents engaged in some form of high cost non-bank borrowing (payday loans) in the last year.
57% of high school students tested failed a basic financial literacy test.
These people are our current and future work force. If they're living paycheck to paycheck and using payday or title loans, they're certainly not paying attention to their work. How can the be productive for their employer when their minds are elsewhere?
66% of Wisconsin businesses provide some form of financial education for their employees. The problem is, 90% of these are talking about investing for retirement when 55% of their workforce is living paycheck to paycheck.
Kevin and I are putting together a financial boot camp program to fix this trend. If you're an employer, it's extremely important for you to help your employees get their finances under control so their problems don't become your problem.
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