Kyla Scanlon, author of “In This Economy?,” joins TheStreet to explain how we can bridge the financial literacy gap for Gen Z-ers.
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00:00What are some key areas where you think people need more education and more awareness when it
00:06comes to their finances? I really think it is dealing with interest rates. I used to sell cars
00:14and I think that there's sometimes a little bit of confusion around, you know, what is financing
00:20a car actually look like and like what is an 84-month payment actually costing me. So I would
00:27say like that's a big thing. Auto is a huge part of people's budget and oftentimes, you know,
00:33having such extended payments can be very painful for people as well. I think the second thing is
00:40housing. You know, mortgages are great but then you have all these other things that oftentimes
00:46come as a surprise, I think, to homeowners when you're buying a home like property taxes,
00:50insurance, etc. And so I'd say those two things which are kind of like the core part
00:55of an economic experience, which is buying a car and buying a house, there could always be
01:00more education around. It's not people's fault that they don't know it. It's not something that
01:04we're necessarily taught in school, but it's super important to understand. And what about
01:10the generational differences? A recent survey showed that Gen Z lacks financial confidence.
01:16How can we bridge, how can this gap be bridged? Sure, yeah. I think that the lack of financial
01:25confidence probably comes from student loan debt. You know, you're 18 years old and you're signing a
01:30huge loan for, you know, $100,000 or such. And so I think that that can maybe be addressed,
01:37like actually walking people through what student loan debt is, what impact that it can have. It
01:42would be a great first step. I'm a big advocate of policy, like public policy. I think that
01:48setting people up with some sort of stock market account, I would love to see a return to baby
01:53bonds. I just think that like having a financial foundation, to use that word again, would help
01:59reduce some of this financial uncertainty that we see. I think a lot of people are just worried
02:04about the lack of safety net because if something happens, like, you know, where do you go? What
02:09do you do? And so I just think that the more that we can help people sort of establish a
02:13financial foundation, the less uncertainty that we could see.