By ARTHUR VIDRO
On Consumerism
At a local supermarket a year ago, I observed how far money-handling skills at cash registers have declined over the decades.
I stood off to one side, silently watching a cashier being trained.
An experienced cashier supervised the trainee, who was ringing up the purchases. When one customer handed over a pile of currency as payment, the cashier-in-training froze in terror. She turned to the trainer in confusion. “He gave me all this money!”
“Go on,” said the trainer. “Count it.”
“YOU MEAN I HAVE TO COUNT IT????”
The fear was palpable.
Too many people enter the workforce with zero experience handling currency.
Slowly, that might be changing.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom last month signed legislation to make a semester-long course on personal finance education a prerequisite for earning a high-school diploma. The new law requires schools to offer the course by the 2027-2028 school year and make it a graduation requirement by 2030-2031.
Kudos to California for making this a soon-to-be graduation requirement. But each state charts its own course. In 2022, New Hampshire became the 15th state to require the teaching of personal finance in the public school system.
Some states ignore the topic. Some might offer the class as an elective but not as a requirement. Some require that all students take such a class but don’t make passing the class a graduation requirement.
Some schools offer this education even if it’s not mandated by the state.
There’s no lack of financial subjects for kids to master. And we shouldn’t be waiting until high school to bring up some of these subjects. I’ve seen it work for students at much younger levels.
Kids 6 or 7 can learn to count money, even if it’s only Monopoly currency or plastic coins.
In a land far away, I was counting real money when I was in Mrs. Corwin’s interage class for fourth and fifth graders. From October until June, I was the class milk monitor. There were two choices: whole milk and chocolate milk. Whole milk cost a nickel, and chocolate just a wee bit more.
Each morning, students who wanted milk with their lunch would pay me. I would record the student’s name, the type of milk, and make change. Later that morning I’d deliver the envelope of money to the school cafeteria and place the milk orders. Then at lunchtime I received and dispensed the small containers of milk. Occasionally a student expecting milk wasn’t given any, because he or she had forgotten to pay. Sometimes I stopped a student who had paid for white milk but was grabbing for the chocolate. I made sure each student got what they paid for.
In Mrs. Corwin’s interage class for fourth and fifth graders, we were taught budgeting. Each student chose a (pretend) occupation and was given a (pretend) income and had to generate an appropriate budget. I remember estimating a month’s worth of utilities would cost $500. I had no clue. But Mrs. Corwin changed that number to a much lower figure. That’s how I learned. (Now, more than half a century later, that $500 figure is about right.)
Mrs. Corwin taught her interage class all about the stock market, with each student choosing a stock to follow. Weekly prices were posted on a chart on a wall.
Students who are taught basic financial subjects have a better chance of becoming savvy consumers who are better able to navigate the ways of the world.
Students should be taught about interest rates, with a focus on how they aid savings and can cost you dearly when borrowing.
Students should learn to balance a checkbook. Even if you don’t write paper checks, you need to know how much is in your checking account without a computer telling you the amount at that moment, because five minutes later a check you’ve forgotten about might clear or an automated payment might click in and thus change your balance.
Other topics: IRAs, both Roth and traditional. Certificates of deposit. Money market funds. Savings accounts versus checking accounts. Insurance policies. Keeping track of where one’s money goes.
I wish more could be done. Too many adults enter the workforce without the skills I used as a milk monitor.
Heck, I’d even offer to teach a financial literacy class.
But I couldn’t teach health insurance. It’s far too meshuga even for me to understand.
