What We Really Need Instead of “Literacy”
Teaching people how ETFs work isn’t enough. If we want real financial well-being, we need better systems, better support, and a better deal— not just better worksheets.
If the goal is financial well-being, teaching people about ETFs isn’t enough. We need systems, policies, and support that actually make financial success possible—and that starts with organizing, not worksheets.
April is Financial Literacy Month, which sounds like a good thing. Who wouldn’t want people to know more about money? But the whole thing starts to look a lot less helpful once you realize who’s pushing it—and why.
Banks, credit card companies, and financial institutions love talking about financial literacy. They want you to think the reason you’re struggling with money is because you didn’t read the fine print. Not because rent is sky-high, child care costs more than your paycheck, or because they rewrote the rules of the economy to favor themselves. Nope, it’s your fault for not knowing what an ETF is.
That’s the scam.
Financial literacy campaigns often feel like gaslighting. It’s a tidy way to say, “Hey, if you’re behind, it’s probably because you’re not trying hard enough to learn.” But let’s be honest: people aren’t struggling because they don’t know how amortization works. They’re struggling because their expenses exceed their income, they’re supporting kids or parents, housing is unaffordable, and we’ve dismantled most of the public systems that used to support people through those challenges.
Here’s a concrete example. I worked with a couple recently who’d bought a home, and one of their parents—a financial advisor—kept telling them to make extra mortgage payments to pay it off faster. Is that bad advice? Not really. But is it good advice for this specific couple, right now? Not necessarily. If extra mortgage payments mean less money to spend time together, support their community, or just breathe a little, then that "smart" advice may actually be doing harm.
Context matters. Values matter. And literacy alone doesn’t get you there.
When Literacy Isn’t the Problem
Let’s imagine two scenarios:
You’re making six figures, but you’re still living paycheck to paycheck. You know about Roth IRAs. You’ve listened to every financial podcast out there. And yet your savings barely grow.
You’re earning $38,000, paying for child care and rent, and your car needs repairs. You’ve got debt. Your head’s barely above water. Someone hands you a worksheet on compound interest.
Neither person is struggling because of a lack of knowledge. In the first case, it’s probably a mix of time constraints, decision fatigue, and just how expensive life is. In the second case, it’s about systems failing to provide a living wage or affordable care. In both cases, a worksheet isn’t the answer.
You don’t need a workbook. You need support.
The Industry Built This Confusion On Purpose
You know what’s rich? Banks running ads about how hard it is to understand credit card terms. Like, yeah—you wrote them. If they wanted you to understand how your money worked, they could just make it clearer. They don’t want to. They profit when it’s confusing.
Overdraft fees, hidden charges, compounding interest at double-digit rates—these aren’t accidents. They’re revenue streams.
And the idea that if you just took the time to read every clause in a 30-page credit agreement, you’d be fine? That’s fantasy. Most people are working long hours, raising kids, trying to stay afloat. They’re not avoiding financial education out of laziness. They’re just trying to get through the day.
Knowing Is Not the Same as Doing
Even people who do know a lot about money sometimes don’t act on that knowledge. I’ve been a financial planner for a decade, and I still don’t have a will. I know better. I recommend it to clients constantly. But life is busy. My wife and I have talked about it, but we just haven’t made the time.
So if you know something and still don’t do it, that doesn’t mean you’re broken. It means you’re human.
That’s why in my practice, I separate financial planning from financial doing. We don’t just talk about what should happen. We actually get on Zoom and do it. Open the account. Submit the form. Book the estate planning appointment. Not because my clients are dumb—they’re not. But because doing it alone is hard.
Systems, Not Worksheets
If we want people to feel more confident and secure in their finances, we need more than literacy. We need:
A living wage
Affordable child care
Universal health care
Rent control and housing support
Student loan reform
Stronger unions
Public jobs programs
In short, we need a system where making good choices is possible in the first place.
Right now, politicians of both parties love to fall back on financial literacy as a cheap, politically safe solution. It sounds good. It doesn’t cost much. It doesn’t piss off corporate donors. And it shifts the responsibility from institutions to individuals. But it doesn’t solve the root problem.
If you want to help people thrive, give them agency. Give them time. Give them a world where they can afford to live. That’s going to take organizing.
We Don’t Need More Lessons. We Need More Power.
I’m not anti-education. I like teaching. I’m writing a whole blog post, after all. But education without agency is a dead end. If you teach someone how to swim and then drop them in a riptide, they’re still going to drown.
What we need is collective power—to push for policies that actually make life liveable. That means organizing. That means voting. That means calling out the financial institutions that broke the system and now want credit for explaining how to survive it.
And yes, if you have some financial breathing room, maybe it is time to find a planner or accountability partner to help you move forward. Not because you need to learn more—but because you're ready to act.
Let’s stop asking why people don’t know more about money. And start asking why they don’t have enough of it to begin with.
