Personal Finance
Mapped: Personal Finance Education Requirements, by State
The Percentage of Students Receiving Personal Finance Education
When you graduated from high school, did you know how to create a budget? Did you have an understanding of what stocks and bonds were? Did you know how to do your own taxes?
For many Americans, the answer to these questions is probably a “no”. Only 22.7% of U.S. high school students are guaranteed to receive a personal finance education. While this is up from 16.4% in 2018, this still represents a small fraction of students.
This graphic uses data from Next Gen Personal Finance (NGPF) to show the percentage of high school students required to take a personal finance course by state.
A Closer Look at State-level Personal Finance Education
A standalone personal finance course was defined as a course that was at least one semester, which is equivalent to 60 consecutive instructional hours. Here’s the percentage of students in each state who have a required (not optional) personal finance course.
State/Territory | % of Students Required to Take Personal Finance Course |
---|---|
Mississippi | 100.0% |
Missouri | 100.0% |
Virginia | 100.0% |
Tennessee | 99.7% |
Alabama | 99.6% |
Utah | 99.6% |
Iowa | 91.3% |
North Carolina | 89.2% |
Oklahoma | 47.1% |
New Jersey | 43.0% |
Nebraska | 42.8% |
Kansas | 40.8% |
Wyoming | 38.3% |
Arkansas | 34.6% |
Wisconsin | 33.5% |
South Dakota | 27.1% |
Ohio | 23.5% |
Pennsylvania | 16.2% |
Maine | 15.6% |
Rhode Island | 14.8% |
Connecticut | 14.7% |
Illinois | 13.9% |
Maryland | 12.5% |
North Dakota | 12.2% |
Vermont | 12.1% |
Nevada | 11.0% |
Indiana | 10.9% |
Oregon | 7.5% |
Minnesota | 6.9% |
Montana | 6.9% |
New Hampshire | 6.0% |
Kentucky | 5.5% |
Colorado | 5.4% |
Delaware | 5.0% |
Massachusetts | 5.0% |
West Virginia | 3.2% |
Louisiana | 2.7% |
Washington | 2.4% |
Texas | 2.2% |
New York | 2.0% |
Michigan | 1.7% |
Idaho | 1.4% |
Arizona | 1.0% |
California | 0.8% |
South Carolina | 0.8% |
Alaska | 0.6% |
Florida | 0.4% |
New Mexico | 0.4% |
Georgia | 0.0% |
Hawaii | 0.0% |
Washington, D.C. | 0.0% |
Eight states currently have state-wide requirements for a personal finance course: Alabama, Mississippi, Missouri, Iowa, North Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, and Virginia. Naturally, the level of personal finance education is highest in these states.
Five states have begun the process of implementing a requirement, with Florida being the most populous state yet to guarantee personal finance education for high schoolers. The state previously required schools to offer a personal finance course as an elective, but only 5% of students took the course.
Outside of the guarantee states, only 9.3% of students are required to take a personal finance course. That number drops to 5% for schools that have a high percentage of Black or Brown students, while students eligible for a free or reduced lunch program (i.e. lower income students) also hover at the 5% number.
Why is Personal Financial Education Important?
The majority of Americans believe parents are responsible for teaching their children about personal finance. However, nearly a third of parents say they never talk to their children about finances. Personal finance education at school is one way to help fill that gap.
People who have received a financial education tend to have a higher level of financial literacy. In turn, this can lead to people being less likely to face financial difficulties.
People with low levels of financial literacy were five times more likely to be unable to cover one month of living expenses, when compared to people with high financial literacy. Separate research has found that implementing a state mandate for personal finance education led to improved credit scores and reduced delinquency rates.
Not only that, financial education can play a key role in building wealth. One survey found that only one-third of millionaires averaged a six-figure income over the course of their career. Instead of relying on high salaries, the success of most millionaires came from employing basic personal finance principles: investing early and consistently, avoiding credit card debt, and spending carefully using tools like budgets and coupons.
Expanding Access to Financial Education
Once the in-progress state requirements have been fully implemented, more than a third of U.S. high school students will have guaranteed access to a personal finance course. Momentum is expanding beyond guarantee states, too. There are 48 personal finance bills pending in 18 states according to NGPF’s financial education bill tracker.
Importantly, 88% of surveyed adults support personal finance education mandates—and most wish they had also been required to take a personal finance course themselves.
When we ask the next generation of graduates if they understand how to build a budget, it’s more likely that they will confidently say “yes”.
Personal Finance
Charted: Retirement Age by Country
We chart current and effective retirement ages for 45 countries, revealing some stark regional differences.

Charted: Retirement Age by Country
The retirement landscape can look completely different depending on what country you’re in. And charting the retirement age by country reveals a lot of differences in the the makeup of a labor force, both for economic and cultural reasons.
This graphic delves into the current and effective retirement ages across 45 nations in 2020, based on comprehensive data from the OECD 2021 report.
Defining Retirement Ages
Before we dive into the numbers, let’s clarify the measurements used by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD):
- The current retirement age is the age at which individuals can retire without penalty to pension after completing a full career starting from age 22.
- The effective retirement age refers to the average age of exit from the labor force for workers aged 40 years or more.
Many countries have seen workers effectively retire earlier or later than the current retirement age. This variance can arise due to a multitude in factors including differences in career start ages, some industries offering earlier retirements or benefits for later commitments, or countries facilitating different workforce exits due to market demands and policies.
Some people also choose to retire early due to personal reasons or a lack of available work, receiving a smaller pension or in some cases forgoing it entirely. Likewise, some people choose to stay employed if they are able to find work.
Retirement Age by Country in 2020
Here’s a snapshot of the current and effective retirement ages by country in 2020:
Country | Retirement age (Current) | Retirement age (Effective) | Retirement age (Women, Effective) |
---|---|---|---|
🇦🇹 Austria | 65 | 62 | 61 |
🇧🇪 Belgium | 65 | 61 | 60 |
🇨🇦 Canada | 65 | 64 | 63 |
🇨🇱 Chile | 65 | 65 | 61 |
🇨🇴 Colombia | 62 | 67 | 60 |
🇨🇷 Costa Rica | 62 | 67 | 62 |
🇨🇿 Czech Republic | 64 | 63 | 62 |
🇩🇰 Denmark | 66 | 64 | N/A |
🇪🇪 Estonia | 64 | 64 | 65 |
🇫🇮 Finland | 65 | 63 | 64 |
🇫🇷 France | 65 | 60 | 61 |
🇩🇪 Germany | 66 | 63 | N/A |
🇬🇷 Greece | 62 | 61 | 58 |
🇭🇺 Hungary | 65 | 62 | 60 |
🇮🇸 Iceland | 67 | 66 | 64 |
🇮🇪 Ireland | 66 | 64 | N/A |
🇮🇱 Israel | 67 | 65 | N/A |
🇮🇹 Italy | 62 | 62 | 61 |
🇯🇵 Japan | 65 | 68 | 67 |
🇰🇷 Korea, Republic of | 62 | 66 | 65 |
🇱🇻 Latvia | 64 | 66 | 65 |
🇱🇹 Lithuania | 64 | 63 | N/A |
🇱🇺 Luxembourg | 62 | 59 | 60 |
🇲🇽 Mexico | 65 | 66 | 63 |
🇳🇱 Netherlands | 66 | 64 | 63 |
🇳🇿 New Zealand | 65 | 68 | 66 |
🇳🇴 Norway | 67 | 65 | 63 |
🇵🇱 Poland | 65 | 62 | 60 |
🇵🇹 Portugal | 65 | 65 | 63 |
🇸🇰 Slovakia | 63 | 60 | N/A |
🇸🇮 Slovenia | 62 | 62 | 61 |
🇪🇸 Spain | 65 | 61 | 60 |
🇸🇪 Sweden | 65 | 66 | 65 |
🇨🇭 Switzerland | 65 | 65 | 64 |
🇹🇷 Türkiye | 52 | 61 | 59 |
🇬🇧 United Kingdom | 66 | 64 | 63 |
🇺🇸 United States | 66 | 65 | N/A |
🇪🇺 European Union (Average) | 64 | 63 | N/A |
🇦🇷 Argentina | 65 | 62 | 63 |
🇧🇷 Brazil | 62 | 62 | 59 |
🇨🇳 China (People's Republic of) | 60 | 66 | 61 |
🇮🇳 India | 58 | 67 | N/A |
🇮🇩 Indonesia | 57 | 69 | N/A |
🇷🇺 Russia | 62 | 62 | 60 |
🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia | 47 | 59 | N/A |
🇿🇦 South Africa | 60 | 60 | 56 |
Three countries had the highest current retirement age at 67 years, Iceland, Israel, and Norway, but all had slightly lower effective retirement ages on average. On the flip side, Saudi Arabia had the lowest current retirement age at only 47 years with full pension benefits. Only Türkiye at 52 years was close, and notably both had much higher effective retirement ages on average.
Discrepancies between different regions are clear across the board. Many Asian countries including China, India, and South Korea have official minimum retirement ages in the early 60s and late 50s, but see workers stay in the workforce well into their late 60s. Meanwhile, most European countries as well as the U.S. and Canada have more workers retire earlier than minimum retirement ages on average.
Almost all of the countries with measured effective retirement ages for women also saw them exit the workforce earlier than men. This can be the result of cultural gender norms, labor force participation rates, and even the setup of pension systems in different countries.
The five exceptions in the dataset where women retired later than men? Argentina, Estonia, Finland, France, and Luxembourg.
Looking to the Future
In 2023, France sparked controversy by raising its early retirement age by two years. This decision triggered widespread strikes and riots and ignited debates about the balance between economic sustainability and individual well-being.
Given aging demographics in many developed countries and a continued need for labor, this isn’t expected to be the only country to reassess retirement. The OECD projects a two-year increase in the average effective retirement age by the mid-2060s.
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