Financial Literacy

• Dr. Barbara O’Neil of Rutgers, known to NGPF regulars for her tireless efforts in financial education, read and digested the Government’s report on Financial Education in the news recently, and offers her key take-aways. (MoneyTalk)
• A study by the University of Arizona demonstrates that “emerging adults” (college years plus five post college years) with financial knowledge are more successful at “adulting,” including more successful relationships and a lower incidence of mental health issues. (Inside Higher Ed)
• “Emerging adults' development in financial, personal, relational domains are interrelated, with progress in financial domains predicting progress in personal and relational domains,” the study said.
• A University of Texas student gives their perspective on the need for college financial literacy programs. (The Daily Texan)
• (Lend Edu) has come up with a way to evaluate financial literacy programs at colleges and universities and published their top fifty.

Behavioral Finance

• How rich do you have to be to feel rich? An Atlantic reporter’s interview with Elizabeth Dunn, a psychology professor at the University of British Columbia and a co-author of Happy Money: The Science of Happier Spending, sheds some light on the answer.

Credit Cards

• Consumers are choosing cash back over anything else for their credit card perks. According to a survey by creditcards.com, 49% of Americans have a credit card offering cash back, up 6% from the previous year. (Bloomberg)

Paying for College

• The JPMorgan Chase Institute issued a new report, Student Loan Payments: Evidence from 4 Million Families. Statistics on student loan payments from such a large survey reveal the following key results.
  • One in four families across the sample spend more than 11% per month on student loans, more than other necessities.
  • The burden on young and low-income households is even greater.
  • For families paying multiple loans, student loans are paid less consistently than auto loans or mortgages.

          Check out the report itself, or the press release on the findings. (Business Wire)  The report has some great graphics!

Careers

• You’ve played “Can You Make It As An Uber Driver?” This NYT reporter tried to make it as a Food Delivery person. Backlash from the revelation in the article that Door Dash used your tips to offset drivers’ guaranteed payment (they didn’t go to the driver), will change their tipping policy. (Bloomberg)
• Here is some important career advice: employers care more about your personality than about your education, according to a report from TopInterview and Resume-Library. Confidence is desireable, and arrogance is the biggest turnoff! (CNBC)
• This St. Louis Fed Open Vault Blog offers advice from HR Manager Jennifer Werthington on how to effectively “manage up.” This provides all the more reason to focus on soft skills. Her top tip is about communication.

“The ability to communicate well is essential to success.”

• If the movie “The Graduate” were made today, the word of advice given to Benjamin Braddock would not be “plastics,” it would be “data analytics.” (Knowledge@Wharton)

GenZ/Technology

• SnapChat gave up on their attempts announced last year to try to attract users over 40 and will settle for the fact that they reach 90% of US 13-24 year olds in the United States. This demographic is currently growing world wide, but they will also grow up, and SnapChat will need to figure out how to keep them engaged. (WSJ-subscription)

Current Events

• Facebook Settlement: Facebook settled with the FTC this week and will pay a record $5B fine for violating privacy agreements and agreed to more oversight to protect users’ privacy in the future. (NYT) Many are skeptical that anything will truly change. TechCrunch gives you all the reasons they feel the settlement is “a joke.”
• Equifax Settlement: Equifax will pay $671M to settle all the class-action suits and actions against it related to its large data breach a couple of years ago. CNBC outlines how the money will be broken down into different pools for different uses, and explains how getting compensation personally for damages will be quite difficult.

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