Americans aren’t doing “anything right” when it comes to financial literacy

The Street

Financial literacy expert John Hope Bryant joins The Street to explain what Americans need to do to get financially on track.

Transcript

00:00So, how do we use financial literacy, which is the subject and the topic of your book,

00:06to level that playing field?

00:09What are we doing wrong in terms of financial literacy?

00:14What do you want to see changed?

00:16This is a beautiful question because the answer is unfortunately or fortunately very simple.

00:21What we're doing wrong is we're not doing anything right.

00:25We're not talking about money in our households.

00:26We're spending it.

00:28I had a home economics class when I was nine years old and a white banker, I say that intentionally

00:34because my first experience with a white man was positive, came in my classroom and taught

00:38me financial literacy.

00:39He was from Bank of America.

00:40He was a volunteer.

00:41He didn't want to be there.

00:42We didn't want him there.

00:45But after he came in once a week for six weeks, by the third week, he's like, you know, kids,

00:48you're not so bad.

00:49We're like, well, you're not so bad for a white dude.

00:51We're joking, but we're not building a rapport.

00:53The fourth week, I was wearing a suit just like him.

00:56The only suit I had, my Sunday suit.

00:57I was modeling him.

00:58I had a little briefcase with my dreams in it.

01:01I was selling mail order to my teachers and finally I asked him, what do you do for a

01:06living?

01:07And how'd you get rich legally?

01:08I was dead serious.

01:09He said, I'm a banker and I finance entrepreneurs.

01:12I said, I've never met a banker before.

01:15I never heard the word entrepreneur before in my life, but if it's legal and you're financing

01:18it, I'm going to be one.

01:20Now, what am I at today?

01:21I am an entrepreneur and what are we doing?

01:24I'm teaching banking principles to level the playing field for now millions of people.

01:28Now I did that.

01:29Everybody watching this can go volunteer in a classroom somewhere.

01:31Everybody watching this can teach this, take this book, go to your local school or church

01:35or wherever and teach financial literacy.

01:38And what I really want to do is I want our Congress, our Senate and our president to

01:41sign a financial literacy for all bill that will embed this key through high school.

01:47But that I'll get to in the next couple of years.

01:50Yeah, that was my next question.

01:51Do you feel that financial literacy needs to be taught in school and how and when?

01:59I'm going to go further to the DEI conversation because he were canceling DEI programs like

02:04it's going north.

02:05Well, what are you guys doing?

02:07That is the business plan for America.

02:09This is the bench for the bench strength for the playoff games of the rest of our lives

02:14are are are the folks who are everybody that we've done this to women in 1972 a woman could

02:20not get a loan without a co-signer of her husband.

02:23Not 1872 1972 a woman can get a credit card or a bank account.

02:29A white woman any woman laws were changed in 74 today women are 25 percent of our economy

02:35seven trillion dollars and we hadn't done that America be a second tier nation today.

02:43So what I'm saying is I like math because it doesn't have an opinion.

02:47We need black and brown and white and women and everybody else to be green.

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