Half of Americans fail a basic money quizFinancial Literacy: How Many Can Pass the Test?

A decade-long US survey of financial literacy finds most people getting barely half the questions right, with almost no improvement in ten years — while the same economy hands every household a dozen high-stakes money decisions.

Start with eight questions: how to find a bank that pays more interest, how much credit card debt you carry each month, whether to buy a new car or an old one, whether to borrow, pay cash or lease. Only about half of respondents get them right.

That is the public face of the GFLEC Personal Finance Index. Behind it sits a 28-question survey that the TIAA Institute and GFLEC have run on large groups for a decade; the 2026 report has just come out. Correct answers have barely moved in ten years. Older people do somewhat better, but no group covers itself in glory.

The test has no answer key, the bills do

Real life asks far more than those eight: how big a mortgage to take, whether to buy life insurance, how much to put into a retirement account, how to invest short-term emergency savings differently from long-term retirement money, when to start Social Security, how much to withdraw each year after retiring.

None of these has a cookie-cutter right answer. But getting them wrong costs real money. If you cannot handle the basics, the odds of choosing well at the moments that matter are not good.

Bad at math, paying in worry

The survey finds that people with less financial knowledge spend more time worrying about money. That worry is not misplaced.

The authors are blunt about it: teaching people to think clearly about money — in high school, in college, and at every point where a financial decision lands — is an undervalued opportunity.