The 2020 TIAA Institute-GFLEC Personal Finance Index: Many Do Not Know What They Do and Do Not Know
Americans’ financial literacy, while remaining low overall, has improved slightly in recent years.
The 2020 TIAA Institute-GFLEC Personal Finance Index (P-Fin Index), part of a long-term study to gauge U.S. adults’ financial literacy, is unique in its capacity to produce a robust measure of overall personal finance knowledge plus a nuanced analysis of financial literacy across eight functional areas. The 2020 wave of the study contains several new questions. For example, individuals were asked to evaluate their financial knowledge and estimate the amount of time they spend dealing with personal financial issues while at work.
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A nationally representative sample of 1,008 U.S. adults, ages 18 and older, completed the 2020 P-Fin Index survey online in January 2020. A sufficient number of Gen Z and Gen Y respondents were sampled to allow for comparisons of financial literacy across generations as well as within age groups.