After eight years of apps, podcasts, finance influencers, and new high school requirements, the average American adult still gets about half of basic personal finance questions right. Gen Z, the generation that grew up with a budgeting app on every phone, scores 38%. Adults with the lowest scores are twice as likely to be stuck in debt and three times as likely to be financially fragile. One car repair or one missed shift, and everything wobbles.

Teaching more does help. Across 76 randomized experiments with more than 160,000 people, those who got financial education knew more and made better money decisions. When Georgia, Idaho and Texas required personal finance in high school, young adults there ended up with higher credit scores and fewer missed payments. So why hasn't the overall number moved? Because knowledge fades. What doesn't fade is habit.

I think we've been asking the wrong question. We keep asking what kids should know about money. The better question is when they start practicing money decisions. You don't learn to ride a bike by reading about balance, but learning about money by trial and error gets expensive. So how do kids practice somewhere safe?

Dr. Stephen Day has been answering that at his own kitchen table. He and his four kids run a mini economy with real jobs, play money, a household store and, yes, taxes. In this conversation, he walks through how to set one up in an hour on a Saturday, why parents should do chores and get paid too, and what his family says instead of "opportunity cost." We also talk about how he went from academic journals to a book deal with a major publisher.

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ABOUT THIS EPISODE

Brandon Sheridan is back on the show. In August, he told us the economy was moving sideways. A month and a half later, I asked him if anything had changed. Short answer: not much.

Then we got into the conversation I've wanted to have with him for a while: his new paper, with 25 coauthors, on what students bring to the first day of an economics class. If you teach economics, this one is for you.

Here’s my takeaway up front: in this job market, you have to prove yourself more than ever.

Friday’s jobs report was the last one before the midterm elections, and it was boring. Boring the way a cold labor market is boring. Nobody is getting laid off in big waves. Nobody is getting hired either.

This week on the Decode Econ podcast, Dr. Jeni Al-Bahrani joins me to talk about what that looks like on the ground. Jeni teaches the senior capstone at Miami University. In fall 2024, about 80% of her seniors had a job lined up before graduation. This fall, it’s about 30%.

Our students want accountability; they want to be challenged, but when you hold them to higher standards, they are pushing back. Jeni called them “Ouchie” moments. If you have noticed that your students are changing, this episode is for you.

We also talk about the three hours at the Apple Store, a lesson in switching costs, and a server who told us the pretzels don’t come with butter, not “in this economy.”

Our economy is changing, so are your students

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