If you are a Lazy Man and Money reader, the answer to that question should be yes. However, if you are the average American, I’ve got bad news for you.
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) created a seven-question Financial Knowledge Quiz. Go ahead and click that link and take it. It will only take a couple of minutes.
I got all seven questions correct, but I was nervous I’d make a careless mistake. I’m betting that most readers here got at least 6 of them correct. That one tough question on bonds seems out of place. I’m not sure the average investor really needs to know too much about how bonds work.
On average, Americans got 3.3 correct, 1.5 incorrect and had 2.2 that they didn’t know. You can look at the statistics by state and the best states didn’t quite average 4 correct answers.
I copied all the questions and answers options into a Word document and gave them to my family for fun. (Well, it was fun for me. Fortunately they didn’t complain.) I left out the “Don’t Know” option because I didn’t want my kids to just circle that seven times and hand it back to me.
My wife got five correct. She missed the bonds question and the one about the time it takes for the investment to double. My 6th grader got four correct, missing those two, and the final one about probability. I think that was more of a careless error than something he lacked knowledge of. My 5th grader also four correct. He missed the bonds, mortgage question, and stock vs. fund diversity questions. Unlike my wife and 6th grader, he correctly got the investment doubling question. I explained to them that a quick way to get the answer is to use the Rule of 72. The average American probably doesn’t know that one.
So, my fifth grader got more correct questions than the average American. In reality, he was probably just about average. If the “don’t know” options were removed for everyone, they probably would have guessed their way to a 4th correct answer on average.
I had told my kids ahead of time that I had no expectations. How could I? Outside of some Teen Titans Go! money lessons episodes, I haven’t pushed too much financial education on them. I tried when they were in the 2nd and 3rd grades, but they fought me on it.
I have to give a hat tip to USA Today for bringing the financial quiz to my attention. Their article,
Can you pass a seven-question quiz on financial literacy? Most Americans could not., had a couple of interesting nuggets. For example, only 27% got at least five questions right (where my wife was), and only 4% got them all right.
I like these kinds of quizes because they are really quick and easy to take. The trade-off is that I don’t know how reliable they are. If that bond question was replaced with something more practical like a grocery shopping question, I bet the scores would be higher.
Did you take the quiz? I double-dog dare you to leave your score in the comments.
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