Bill Text: CA ACR162 | 2015-2016 | Regular Session | Chaptered
Bill Title: Financial Aid and Literacy Month.
Spectrum: Slight Partisan Bill (Democrat 50-23-1)
Status: (Passed) 2016-05-20 - Chaptered by Secretary of State - Res. Chapter 42, Statutes of 2016. [ACR162 Detail]
Download: California-2015-ACR162-Chaptered.html
BILL NUMBER: ACR 162 CHAPTERED
BILL TEXT
RESOLUTION CHAPTER 42
FILED WITH SECRETARY OF STATE MAY 20, 2016
ADOPTED IN SENATE MAY 12, 2016
ADOPTED IN ASSEMBLY APRIL 25, 2016
AMENDED IN ASSEMBLY APRIL 25, 2016
AMENDED IN ASSEMBLY APRIL 7, 2016
INTRODUCED BY Assembly Member Dababneh
(Coauthors: Assembly Members Achadjian, Alejo, Travis Allen,
Arambula, Atkins, Baker, Bigelow, Bloom, Bonilla, Bonta, Brough,
Brown, Burke, Calderon, Campos, Chau, Chávez, Chiu, Chu, Cooley,
Cooper, Dahle, Daly, Dodd, Eggman, Frazier, Beth Gaines, Gallagher,
Cristina Garcia, Eduardo Garcia, Gatto, Gipson, Gomez, Gonzalez,
Gordon, Gray, Grove, Hadley, Harper, Roger Hernández, Holden, Irwin,
Jones-Sawyer, Kim, Lackey, Levine, Linder, Lopez, Low, Maienschein,
Mathis, Mayes, McCarty, Medina, Melendez, Mullin, Nazarian,
Obernolte, O'Donnell, Patterson, Quirk, Rendon, Ridley-Thomas, Salas,
Steinorth, Mark Stone, Thurmond, Ting, Wagner, Waldron, Weber, Wilk,
and Wood)
MARCH 30, 2016
Relative to Financial Aid and Literacy Month.
LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST
ACR 162, Dababneh. Financial Aid and Literacy Month.
This measure would declare the month of April 2016 as Financial
Aid and Literacy Month, with the theme of "Prosperity Through
Education," to raise public awareness about the continuing need for
increased financial literacy.
WHEREAS, California law requires that financial education,
including budgeting, managing credit, student loans, consumer debt,
and identity theft security, is included in the next revision of the
social sciences, health, and mathematics curricula; and
WHEREAS, The State of California established the Bank on
California Program to raise awareness among unbanked consumers about
the benefits of account ownership and to spur Californians to open
accounts; and
WHEREAS, The Bank on California Program makes quality money
management education more easily available to low-income Californians
and raises statewide awareness of the unbanked problem and potential
solutions; and
WHEREAS, Less than 20 percent of teachers feel equipped to teach
personal finance and more than one in six pupils in the United States
do not reach the baseline level of proficiency in financial
literacy; and
WHEREAS, According to American Consumer Credit Counseling, the
United States ranks 14th on the global list of financially literate
countries, behind countries like the Czech Republic and Singapore;
and
WHEREAS, Nearly one in four adults admit that they do not pay
their bills on time; and
WHEREAS, According to a GOBankingRates.com survey, 62 percent of
Americans have less than $1,000 in their savings accounts; and
WHEREAS, According to Sallie Mae's "How America Saves for College
2015," on average, parents saved $10,040 for college, the lowest
level in three years; and
WHEREAS, 79 percent of parents believe it is more difficult for
today's parents to save and pay for college than it was for their
parents' generation; and
WHEREAS, Families that do not save for college typically do not
save generally. Parents who are not saving for college have had, on
average, 65 percent less money saved for all purposes than those who
are saving for college; and
WHEREAS, The top reason cited for not saving for college is that
families do not have enough discretionary money to set aside
exclusively for a child's college education. More than 80 percent of
parents cite this as a major or minor reason for not having started
to save for college; and
WHEREAS, Nearly 67 percent of non-college-saving parents are not
saving for college because they assume their children will be able to
use financial aid or scholarships to cover the cost of paying for
college; and
WHEREAS, According to the Junior Achievement 2015 Teens & Personal
Finance Survey, 48 percent of teenagers think that their parents
will help pay for college, but only 16 percent of parents of
teenagers report planning to pay for postsecondary education; and
WHEREAS, Parents serve as teenagers' biggest teachers when it
comes to money management skills. Eighty-four percent of teenagers
report looking to their parents for information on how to manage
money, but 34 percent of parents say their family's approach to
financial matters is to not discuss money with their children; and
WHEREAS, Parents who do talk to their children about money are
often leaving girls out of the conversation. Teenage girls are more
likely than teenage boys to say that their parents do not talk to
them enough about money management (40 percent to 24 percent) and
paying for college (34 percent to 23 percent); and
WHEREAS, The number of teenagers who think that their parents do
not spend enough time talking to them about managing money rose from
21 percent in 2014 to 32 percent in 2015; and
WHEREAS, According to the Council for Economic Education's 2016
Survey of the States, student loan debt is more than $1.3 trillion,
the second largest class of consumer debt after mortgages; and
WHEREAS, The college graduating class of 2014 graduated with an
average of nearly $29,000 in student loan debt; and
WHEREAS, Undergraduate students typically can use scholarships and
grants to cover only about 31 percent of the total average cost of
one year of a college education; and
WHEREAS, 75 percent of credit card-carrying college students did
not know they would be hit with late payment fees; and
WHEREAS, 4 in 10 millennials say they are overwhelmed with debt
and more than one-half say they are living paycheck-to-paycheck,
leaving them no ability to save for the future; and
WHEREAS, According to a study by PwC and the George Washington
Global Financial Literacy Excellence Center of millennials ages 23 to
35, inclusive, millennials are the age group with the lowest level
of financial literacy. Only 24 percent demonstrated basic financial
literacy, and only 8 percent demonstrated high financial literacy;
and
WHEREAS, Millennials are "financially fragile" in the sense that
nearly 50 percent do not believe they could come up with $2,000 if an
unexpected need arose within the next month, nearly 30 percent are
overdrawing on their checking accounts, and 53 percent carried over a
credit card balance in the last 12 months; and
WHEREAS, Only 36 percent of millennials have a retirement account,
17 percent with an account took a loan in the past 12 months, and 14
percent took a hardship withdrawal in the past 12 months; and
WHEREAS, Many employers, government agencies, schools, service
groups, community organizations, libraries, financial institutions,
and nonprofit entities, including, but not limited to, FDIC: Money
Smart, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's Office of Financial
Empowerment, the California Jump$tart Coalition, the CalCPA
Institute, the New America Foundation, SparkPoint Centers, America
Saves, the United Way Financial Literacy Program, Junior Achievement
Finance Park, and the Girl Scouts of America, have created programs
to help people improve their financial literacy skills; and
WHEREAS, Resolutions similar to this resolution have been
introduced and passed with strong bipartisan support to increase
awareness of the need for financial literacy for California citizens;
now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the Assembly of the State of California, the Senate
thereof concurring, That the Legislature hereby declares the month of
April 2016 as Financial Aid and Literacy Month, with the theme of
"Prosperity Through Education," to raise public awareness about the
continuing need for increased financial literacy; and be it further
Resolved, That legislators, employers, government agencies,
schools, service groups, community organizations, libraries,
financial institutions, and other nonprofit entities should be
encouraged to provide all Californians with the opportunity to obtain
or improve their financial literacy skills; and be it further
Resolved, That the Chief Clerk of the Assembly transmit copies of
this resolution to the author for appropriate distribution.
