FINANCIAL 

LITERACY

Overlap of Programs 

Suggests There May 

Be Opportunities for 

Consolidation

Report to Congressional Committees

July 2012

GAO-12-588

United States Government Accountability Office

GAO
United States Government Accountability Office

Highlights of GAO-12-588, a report to 

congressional committees

July 2012

FINANCIAL LITERACY

Overlap of Programs Suggests There May Be 

Opportunities for Consolidation

Why GAO Did This Study

Financial literacy—the ability to use 

knowledge and skills to manage 

financial resources effectively—plays 

an important role in helping to ensure 

the financial health and stability of 

individuals and families. Federal 

agencies promote financial literacy 

through activities including print and 

online materials, broadcast media, 

individual counseling, and classroom 

instruction. In response to a mandate 

requiring GAO to identify duplicative 

government programs and activities, 

this report addresses (1) the cost of 

federal financial literacy activities; (2) 

the extent of their overlap and 

fragmentation; (3) the federal 

government’s coordination of these 

activities; and (4) what is known about 

their effectiveness. GAO reviewed 

agency budget documents, strategic 

plans, performance reports, websites, 

and other materials, and interviewed 

representatives of federal agencies 

and other organizations.

What GAO Recommends

GAO recommends that CFPB clearly 

delineate with other agencies 

respective roles and responsibilities, 

and that the Financial Literacy and 

Education Commission identify options 

for consolidating federal financial 

literacy efforts and address the 

allocation of federal resources in its 

national strategy. CFPB neither agreed 

nor disagreed with these 

recommendations and the Department 

of the Treasury agreed with the 

recommendations directed to the 

commission. 

What GAO Found

The federal government spent about $68 million on 15 of the 16 financial literacy 

programs that were comprehensive in scope or scale in fiscal year 2010; cost 

data were not available for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), 

which was created that year. In addition, about $137 million in federal funding in 

four other major programs was directed to housing counseling, which can include 

elements of financial education. Since fiscal year 2010, at least four of these 

programs have been defunded and CFPB has received resources to fund its 

financial literacy activities. 

Federal financial literacy and housing counseling activities are spread across 

multiple agencies and programs. GAO has not identified duplication—programs 

providing the same activities and services to the same beneficiaries—but has 

found overlap—multiple programs with similar goals and activities—in areas such 

as housing counseling and the financial education of youth. Further, CFPB was 

charged with some financial education duties that overlap with those of other 

federal agencies, making it essential that their respective roles and 

responsibilities be clearly delineated to ensure efficient use of resources. 

Moreover, CFPB’s creation may signal an opportunity for consolidating some

federal financial literacy efforts, which would be consistent with federal goals of 

reorganizing and consolidating federal agencies to reduce the number of 

overlapping government programs.

Federal agencies have made progress in recent years in coordinating their

financial literacy activities and collaborating with nonfederal entities, in large part 

due to the efforts of the federal multiagency Financial Literacy and Education 

Commission. The commission’s 2011 national strategy includes some useful 

elements—such as plans to coordinate interagency communication, improve 

strategic partnerships, and promote evaluation. However, it does not recommend 

or provide guidance on the appropriate allocation of federal resources among 

programs and agencies, which GAO has found to be desirable in a national 

strategy. While the commission’s governance structure presents challenges in 

addressing resource issues, without a clear discussion of resource needs and 

where resources should be targeted, policymakers lack information to help direct 

the strategy’s implementation and help ensure efficient use of funds.

The wide range of federal financial literacy activities and evaluation methods 

makes it difficult to systematically assess overall effectiveness or compare 

results across programs. Among the federal financial literacy programs that we 

reviewed, most included some evaluation component. Some measured the effect

on participant behavior and others assessed changes in participant knowledge or 

tracked output measures, such as the number of consumers reached. Rigorous 

evaluation measuring behavior change is costly and methodologically 

challenging and may not be practical for all types of activities. However, CFPB

and other federal entities have new efforts under way that seek to determine the 

most effective approaches and programs, which GAO believes to be positive 

steps toward helping ensure the best and most efficient use of federal financial 

View GAO-12-588. For more information, literacy resources.

contact Alicia Puente Cackley at (202) 512-

8678 or cackleya@gao.gov.
Page i GAO-12-588 Federal Financial Literacy Programs

Letter 1 

Background 3

Federal Agencies Spent about $68 Million on Financial Literacy 

Activities in Fiscal Year 2010 4

Some Federal Financial Literacy Efforts Overlap and May Offer 

Opportunities for Consolidation 9

Agencies Coordinate Their Efforts, but Opportunities Exist to 

Better Address the Appropriate Allocation of Resources 21

Overall Effectiveness of Federal Financial Literacy Programs Is 

Difficult to Measure, but Additional Evaluation Efforts Are 

Under Way 27

Conclusions 37

Recommendations for Executive Action 38

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation 39

Appendix I Objectives, Scope, and Methodology 41

Appendix II Crosswalk between Federal Financial Literacy Programs 

Identified in the RAND Report and Programs Selected for 

Inclusion in this Report 44

Appendix III Comments from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau 48

Appendix IV Comments from the Department of Health and Human Services 51

Appendix V Comments from the Department of the Treasury 54

Appendix VI GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments 55

Contents
Page ii GAO-12-588 Federal Financial Literacy Programs

Tables

Table 1: Estimates for Costs of 16 Federal Financial Literacy 

Activities, Fiscal Year 2010 5

Table 2: Estimates for Costs of Four Federal Housing Counseling 

Programs, Fiscal Year 2010 7

Table 3: Description and Target Audience for Significant Federal 

Financial Literacy and Housing Counseling Programs and 

Activities, Fiscal Year 2010 9

Figure

Figure 1: Crosswalk between Federal Financial Literacy Programs 

Identified in the RAND Report and Programs Selected for 

Inclusion in This Report (GAO-12-588) 45

Abbreviations

CFPB Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

DOD Department of Defense

Dodd-Frank Act Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and 

 Consumer Protection Act

FDIC Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation

FTC Federal Trade Commission

HUD Department of Housing and Urban 

 Development

SEC Securities and Exchange Commission

Treasury Department of the Treasury

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Page 1 GAO-12-588 Federal Financial Literacy Programs

United States Government Accountability Office

Washington, DC 20548

July 23, 2012

The Honorable Tim Johnson

Chairman

The Honorable Richard C. Shelby

Ranking Member

Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs

United States Senate

The Honorable Spencer Bachus

Chairman

The Honorable Barney Frank

Ranking Member

Committee on Financial Services

House of Representatives

Financial literacy plays an important role in helping to ensure the financial 

health and stability of individuals and families, and economic and 

demographic changes in recent years have further highlighted the need to 

empower all Americans to make informed financial decisions. The federal 

government has played a key role in addressing financial literacy, and this 

role has evolved in recent years, particularly with the creation of the 

Financial Literacy and Education Commission in 2003 and the Bureau of 

Consumer Financial Protection, commonly referred to as the Consumer 

Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), in 2010. At the same time, however, 

increasing fiscal constraints at government agencies, particularly with 

regard to discretionary spending, may limit the resources available for 

financial literacy efforts, underscoring the need for the most efficient use 

of these resources.

We have issued a series of reports on potential duplication, overlap, and 

fragmentation among federal programs, which have included information 

 
 

Page 2 GAO-12-588 Federal Financial Literacy Programs

about financial literacy programs.1

To address the first objective, we collected cost information from 

congressional appropriations, agency budget justifications, and other 

sources as available. Where costs related to financial literacy were not 

discrete or clearly apparent from these documents, we worked with 

agency staff to develop cost estimates. To address the other objectives, 

we reviewed and analyzed relevant reports and surveys and federal 

agency strategic plans, performance and accountability reports, websites, 

budget justifications, performance data, and evaluations related to federal 

financial literacy efforts. We also interviewed staff of 17 federal agencies 

that we had identified in prior work as potentially having significant 

involvement in financial literacy, as well as staff of nonprofit organizations. 

A more extensive discussion of our scope and methodology appears in 

appendix I.

This report expands on these themes 

and addresses (1) what is known about the cost of federal financial 

literacy activities; (2) the extent and consequences of overlap and 

fragmentation among federal financial literacy activities; (3) what the 

federal government is doing to coordinate its financial literacy activities; 

and (4) what is known about the effectiveness of federal financial literacy 

activities.

We conducted this performance audit from May 2011 to July 2012 in 

accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. 

Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain 

sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our 

findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that 

the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and 

conclusions based on our audit objectives.

 

1

Public Law 111-139 required us to identify and report annually on federal programs, 

agencies, offices, and initiatives, either within departments or governmentwide, which 

have duplicative goals or activities. Pub. L. No. 111-139, § 21, 124 Stat. 29 (2010), 31 

U.S.C. § 712 Note. For recent GAO work on potential duplication, overlap, and 

fragmentation among federal financial literacy programs, see GAO, 2012 Annual Report: 

Opportunities to Reduce Duplication, Overlap and Fragmentation, Achieve Savings, and 

Enhance Revenue, GAO-12-342SP (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 28, 2012), pp. 151-154; 

Follow-up on 2011 Report: Status of Actions Taken to Reduce Duplication, Overlap, and 

Fragmentation, Save Tax Dollars, and Enhance Revenue, GAO-12-453SP (Washington, 

D.C.: Feb. 28, 2012), pp. 53-54; and Opportunities to Reduce Potential Duplication in 

Government Programs, Save Tax Dollars, and Enhance Revenue, GAO-11-318SP 

(Washington, D.C.: Mar. 1, 2011).
 

Page 3 GAO-12-588 Federal Financial Literacy Programs

Financial literacy, which is sometimes also referred to as financial 

capability, has been defined as the ability to use knowledge and skills to 

manage financial resources effectively for a lifetime of well-being. 

Financial literacy encompasses financial education—the process whereby 

individuals improve their knowledge and understanding of financial 

products, services, and concepts. However, to make sound financial 

decisions, individuals need to be equipped not only with a basic level of 

financial knowledge, but also with the skills to apply that knowledge to 

financial decision making and behaviors.

The federal government plays a wide-ranging role in promoting financial 

literacy, and the multiagency Financial Literacy and Education 

Commission, which was created in 2003 by the Fair and Accurate Credit 

Transactions Act of 2003, was charged with, among other things, 

developing a national strategy to promote financial literacy and education, 

coordinating federal efforts, and identifying—and proposing means of 

eliminating—areas of overlap and duplication.2 The commission is 

currently comprised of 21 federal entities; its Chair is the Secretary of the 

Treasury and its Vice Chair, as established in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street 

Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank Act), is the Director of 

CFPB.3

Efforts to improve financial literacy can take many forms. These can 

include one-on-one counseling; curricula taught in a classroom setting; 

workshops or information sessions; print materials, such as brochures 

A wide variety of other organizations also provide financial 

literacy resources, including nonprofit community-based organizations; 

consumer advocacy organizations; financial services companies; trade 

associations; employers; and local, state, and federal government 

entities. Some financial literacy initiatives are aimed at the general 

population, while others target certain audiences, such as low-income 

individuals, military personnel, high school students, seniors, or 

homeowners. Similarly, some financial literacy initiatives cover a broad 

array of concepts and financial topics, while others target specific topics, 

such as managing credit, investing, purchasing a home, saving for 

retirement, or avoiding fraudulent or abusive practices.

 

2

Pub. L. No. 108-159, Title V, 117 Stat. 1952, 2003 (2003) (codified at 20 U.S.C. §§ 9701-

08).

3

Pub. L. No. 111-203, Title X, § 1013(d), 124 Stat. 1971, 1956 (2010), 20 U.S.C. § 

9702(d).

Background 
 

Page 4 GAO-12-588 Federal Financial Literacy Programs

and pamphlets; and mass media campaigns that can include 

advertisements in magazines and newspapers or on television, radio, or 

billboards. Many entities use the Internet to provide financial education, 

which can include information and training materials, practical tools such 

as budget worksheets and loan and retirement calculators, and interactive 

financial games. Youth-focused financial education programs are 

generally tied to a school curriculum.

In fiscal year 2010, the federal government spent about $68 million on 15 

of its 16 significant financial literacy programs and about $137 million on 4 

programs providing housing counseling, which can include elements of 

financial education.

We identified 16 significant financial literacy programs or activities within 

the federal government in fiscal year 2010.4 As seen in table 1, the 

estimated cost for 15 of these programs and activities was $68 million.5

This figure does not include estimated costs for CFPB, which was created 

during fiscal year 2010, or costs related to housing counseling, which is 

discussed separately.

 

4

The program and cost data included in this report reflect fiscal year 2010 because these 

data were originally collected as part of our most recent effort to report on duplication, 

fragmentation, and overlap in federal programs (GAO-12-342SP), which used fiscal year 

2010 as its time frame. We have defined “significant” as those financial literacy and 

education programs or activities that were relatively comprehensive in scope or scale and 

included financial literacy as a key objective rather than a tangential goal. Additional 

information about our criteria for significant programs or activities appears later in this 

report.

5

This report updates cost information provided in our February 2012 report, 

GAO-12-342SP, which did not include cost information for the Office of Personnel 

Management and the Department of Defense. All costs are for fiscal year 2010, with the 

exception of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, costs for which are 

from calendar year 2010.

Federal Agencies 

Spent about $68 

Million on Financial 

Literacy Activities in 

Fiscal Year 2010

Costs for Financial 

Literacy Activities
 

Page 5 GAO-12-588 Federal Financial Literacy Programs

Table 1: Estimates for Costs of 16 Federal Financial Literacy Activities, Fiscal Year 2010

Agency Program or activity

FY 2010 estimate for 

portion of program 

costs attributed to 

financial literacy 

activities Notes

Board of Governors of the Federal 

Reserve System

Division of Consumer and 

Community Affairs and Office of 

Public Affairs

$1,029,885 Estimate of calendar year 2010 

costs provided by agency staff

Consumer Financial Protection 

Bureau 

Office of Financial Education and 

other offices

Not applicable Agency had not yet been created 

at the beginning of FY 2010

Department of Agriculture Family and Consumer Economics 

programs

8,433,500 Estimate of FY 2010 costs 

provided by agency staff

Department of Defense Personal Financial Management 

Program (located within Family 

Support Centers)

38,000,000 Estimate of FY 2010 costs 

provided by agency staff

Department of Education Excellence in Economic Education 

Program 

1,447,000 FY 2010 obligations

Financial Education for College 

Access and Success Program

1,700,000 FY 2010 obligations

Department of Health and Human 

Services 

National Education and Resource 

Center on Women and Retirement 

Planning

245,763 FY 2010 obligations

Department of Labor Saving Matters Retirement 

Savings Education Campaign

365,387 Estimate of FY 2010 costs 

provided by agency staff

Wi$eUp 170,000 Estimate of FY 2010 costs 

provided by agency staff

Department of the Treasury Office of Financial Education and 

Financial Access (including staff 

support for the Financial Literacy 

and Education Commission, and 

other initiatives)

1,300,000 Estimate of FY 2010 costs 

provided by agency staff

Federal Deposit Insurance 

Corporation

Money Smart Financial Education 

Program 

2,749,594 Estimate of FY 2010 costs 

provided by agency staff

Federal Trade Commission Division of Consumer and 

Business Education

784,904 Estimate of FY 2010 costs 

provided by agency staff

Office of the Comptroller of the 

Currency

Consumer education activities 450,000 Estimate of FY 2010 costs 

provided by agency staff.

Office of Personnel Management Retirement Readiness NOW 200,000 Estimate of FY 2010 costs 

provided by agency staff

Securities and Exchange 

Commission

Office of Investor Education and 

Advocacy

2,000,000 Estimate of FY 2010 costs 

provided by agency staff

Social Security Administration Financial Literacy Research 

Consortium

9,221,000 Estimate of FY 2010 costs 

provided by agency staff

Total $68,097,033

Source: GAO analysis based on federal budget documents and cost estimates provided by agency staff.
 

Page 6 GAO-12-588 Federal Financial Literacy Programs

Two of these federal financial literacy programs or activities were funded 

through a congressional appropriation for the specified program. The 

Excellence in Economic Education Program was appropriated about 

$1.45 million in fiscal year 2010, and the Department of Education 

obligated almost all of the amount to fund a single 5-year grant to a 

national nonprofit education organization. The National Education and 

Resource Center on Women and Retirement Planning was appropriated 

$249,000 for fiscal year 2010, and the Department of Health and Human 

Services obligated about $246,000 of that amount that year.

For most of the other programs, financial literacy activities were typically 

not organized as separate budget line items or cost centers within federal 

agencies. Instead, financial literacy activities were often one element of a 

broader effort that itself may or may not have had discrete funding. In 

these cases, we asked agency staff to estimate the portion of program 

costs that could be attributed to financial literacy activities. This typically 

entailed estimating the cost for the portion of staff time devoted to 

financial literacy, and sometimes also included the cost of contracts, 

printing, or other resources related to financial literacy activities. Because 

the methods for estimating costs varied, these costs may not be fully 

comparable across agencies.

We did not collect comprehensive information for costs subsequent to 

fiscal year 2010, but spending on many financial literacy programs has 

been in flux since that time. For example, the Social Security 

Administration’s Financial Literacy Research Consortium and the 

Financial Education for College Access and Success Program did not 

receive new funding in fiscal years 2011 or 2012, and the Excellence in 

Economic Education Program did not receive funding for fiscal year 2012.

In addition, at least two agencies—the Department of the Treasury 

(Treasury) and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System—

told us that their staffing resources devoted to financial literacy have 

declined since 2010. We did not identify any new federal financial literacy 

programs created since fiscal year 2010 other than CFPB, which was 

being formed as an agency that year.
 

Page 7 GAO-12-588 Federal Financial Literacy Programs

As shown in table 2, two federal agencies and a federally chartered 

nonprofit corporation spent about $136.6 million on housing counseling 

efforts during fiscal year 2010.6

Table 2: Estimates for Costs of Four Federal Housing Counseling Programs, Fiscal Year 2010

We have separated out the costs of 

housing counseling from other financial literacy activities because 

financial education typically is only a limited aspect of most housing 

counseling, which often largely consists of one-on-one assistance to 

address individual situations.

Agency Program or activity FY 2010 estimate Notes

Department of Housing and 

Urban Development

Housing Counseling Assistance Program $65,420,000 FY 2010 obligations

Department of the Treasury Financial Education and Counseling Pilot 

Program 

4,150,000 FY 2010 appropriation

NeighborWorks America National Foreclosure Mitigation Counseling 

Program 

65,000,000 FY 2010 obligations

Other housing counseling activities 2,000,000 Estimate of FY 2010 costs 

provided by agency staff

Total $136,570,000

Source: GAO analysis based on federal budget documents and cost estimates provided by agency staff.

As seen above, the Department of Housing and Urban Development 

(HUD) obligated about $65.4 million during fiscal year 2010 for its 

Housing Counseling Assistance Program, which it used for certifying and 

overseeing housing counseling providers, training housing counselors, 

and providing counseling agencies with competitive grants. HUD also has 

15 other active programs that have some housing counseling component 

or allow some portion of their funding to be used for housing counseling.7

 

6

Programs within other agencies, such as the Department of Defense and the Department 

of Veterans Affairs, also provide some elements of housing counseling.

In addition, NeighborWorks America, a federally chartered nonprofit 

7

These programs are the Federal Housing Administration’s Home Equity Conversion 

Mortgage; Community Development Block Grant; HOME Investment Partnerships 

Program; Second Mortgage Assistance for First-Time Homebuyers; Rural Housing 

Stability Grant Program; Public Housing Operating Fund; Section 8 Tenant-Based Rental 

Assistance Homeownership Option; Demolition and Disposition of Public Housing; Family 

Self-Sufficiency; Public Housing Resident Homeownership Programs; Conversion of 

Distressed Public Housing to Tenant-Based Assistance; Low Income Housing 

Preservation and Resident Homeownership Act Prepayment Options; Native American 

Housing Assistance and Self Determination Act Housing Block Grants; Native Hawaiian 

Housing Block Grants; and Section 8 Rental Assistance.

Costs for Housing 

Counseling Activities
 

Page 8 GAO-12-588 Federal Financial Literacy Programs

corporation, was appropriated $65 million for the National Foreclosure 

Mitigation Counseling Program during fiscal year 2010, of which it 

expended $59.4 million in grants for counseling, $3 million for training 

counselors, and $2.6 million for administrative purposes, according to 

agency staff. The organization also estimated that it spent about $2 

million on other housing counseling activities—primarily prepurchase 

counseling—from funds it received through a separate congressional 

appropriation.8 Treasury’s Financial Education and Counseling Pilot 

Program, created by the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008, 

provided $4.15 million in grants during fiscal year 2010 to provide 

counseling to prospective homebuyers.9

In general, funding for housing counseling has varied in recent years. For 

example, HUD received no appropriated funds for its Housing Counseling 

Assistance Program in fiscal year 2011, but funding was restored to $45 

million in fiscal year 2012. The agency has requested $55 million for the 

program in its fiscal year 2013 budget request, which it said would help 

support the Office of Housing Counseling, a new office created by the 

Dodd-Frank Act. The Financial Education and Counseling Pilot Program 

was appropriated no funds in fiscal years 2011 and 2012.

Congress designated $3.15 

million for an eligible organization in Hawaii, and Treasury also selected 

three additional organizations to receive grants.

 

8

According to NeighborWorks staff, in addition to its direct appropriations from Congress, 

NeighborWorks also received two grants from HUD related to housing counseling in fiscal 

year 2010. We have included the funding for those grants in the cost estimate for HUD 

rather than NeighborWorks. One grant was for $1,250,501 for comprehensive counseling, 

and the second was for $500,000 for counseling under the Home Equity Conversion 

Mortgage program, which allows homeowners age 62 or older to tap into the equity in their 

homes by borrowing against the value of their home.

9

Pub. L. No. 110-289, § 1132, 122 Stat. 2654, 2727 (2008) (codified at 12 U.S.C. §1701x 

Note).
 

Page 9 GAO-12-588 Federal Financial Literacy Programs

Federal financial literacy efforts are carried out by multiple federal 

programs and agencies. As shown in table 3, in fiscal year 2010 there 

were 16 significant federal financial literacy programs or activities among 

14 federal agencies, as well as 4 housing counseling programs among 2 

federal agencies and a federally chartered nonprofit corporation. These 

programs and activities covered a wide range of topics and target 

audiences and used a variety of delivery mechanisms.

Table 3: Description and Target Audience for Significant Federal Financial Literacy and Housing Counseling Programs and 

Activities, Fiscal Year 2010

Financial Literacy 

Agency Program or activity Description Target audience

Board of Governors of 

the Federal Reserve 

System

Division of Consumer and 

Community Affairs and 

Office of Public Affairs 

Up-to-date web resources on regulatory changes 

regarding financial products and services, calculators, 

and information and tools on terms and disclosures 

for credit card accounts, overdraft protection 

programs, gift cards and credit scores. Website offers 

resources for teachers and students of various ages 

and knowledge levels via educational games, 

classroom lesson plans, online publications, and 

multimedia tools.

Adult consumers and 

students

Consumer Financial 

Protection Bureau

Office of Financial 

Education and other 

offices

The Office of Financial Education, Office of 

Servicemember Affairs, Office of Fair Lending and 

Equal Opportunity, and Office of Financial Protection 

for Older Americans plan to develop and implement 

initiatives to educate and empower consumers in 

general and specific target groups to make informed 

financial decisions. 

Consumers, 

servicemembers and 

their families, individuals 

who are 62 years or older

Department of 

Agriculture 

Family and Consumer 

Economics programs

The National Institute of Food and Agriculture 

provides funding to land-grant colleges and 

universities and to state and county extension offices 

to support research and education, including outreach 

events related to personal financial topics.

Youth, rural families,

elderly, other financially 

vulnerable populations

Some Federal 

Financial Literacy 

Efforts Overlap and 

May Offer 

Opportunities for 

Consolidation 

Financial Literacy Efforts 

Are Spread across Multiple 

Federal Agencies
 

Page 10 GAO-12-588 Federal Financial Literacy Programs

Department of Defense Personal Financial 

Management Program 

(located within Family 

Support Centers)

Personal financial managers on military installations 

provide financial education programs and counseling 

services designed to help servicemembers reach 

their financial goals. Services range from consultation 

on financial management, budgeting, and saving, to 

debt reduction strategies, consumer advocacy and 

complaint resolution, financial workshops, retirement 

planning, housing issues and referrals, and education 

programs for youth and teens. 

Servicemembers and 

their families

Department of 

Education

Excellence in Economic 

Education Program

Competitive grant awarded to an organization that 

conducts activities, and makes subgrants to other 

organizations, to improve the quality of student 

understanding of personal finance and economics.

Students in kindergarten

through grade 12

Financial Education for 

College Access and 

Success Program

Supports state-led efforts to develop, implement, and 

evaluate personal finance instructional materials and 

teacher training intended to aid students in making 

financial aid decisions in relation to postsecondary 

education.

Students in middle and 

high-school—generally 

grades 6-12 

Department of Health 

and Human Services

National Education and 

Resource Center on 

Women and Retirement 

Planning

Provides women access to a one-stop gateway on 

retirement, care giving, health, and planning for longterm care.

Low-income women, 

women of color, women 

with limited English 

proficiency

Department of Labor Saving Matters Retirement 

Savings Education 

Campaign

Workplace campaign to promote retirement savings 

and understanding of federal retirement law using 

interactive web tools, print publications, website, 

public service announcements, seminars, workshops, 

videos, and webcasts.

Employees, employers, 

small businesses

Wi$eUp Eight-module financial education curriculum targeting 

women that covers topics that include money basics, 

credit, saving and investing, insurance, retirement 

planning, and financial security. Offered online or in a 

classroom setting.

Generation X and Y 

women

Department of the 

Treasury

Office of Financial 

Education and Financial 

Access

A variety of financial literacy activities, including 

Money Math (four-lesson curriculum integrating 

personal finance and math topics), the National 

Financial Capability Challenge (provides teaching 

resources and encouragement and tests high school 

students on personal finance topics), Bank On USA 

(program encouraging access to mainstream financial 

institutions), MyMoney.gov (website on federal 

financial literacy resources), and staff support for the 

Financial Literacy and Education Commission.

All populations

Federal Deposit 

Insurance Corporation

Money Smart Financial 

Education Program

Eleven-module financial education curriculum for 

adults designed to enhance basic financial skills and 

create positive banking relationships, available in nine 

languages. Eight-module version is available for 

young adults. The curriculum is available in instructorled, computer-based instruction, and podcast (Mp3) 

formats.

Low- to moderate-income 

adults outside the 

financial mainstream and 

youth ages 12-20
 

Page 11 GAO-12-588 Federal Financial Literacy Programs

Federal Trade 

Commission

Division of Consumer and 

Business Education

Multi-media resources covering topics such as credit, 

credit repair, debt collection, job hunting, job scams, 

managing mortgage payments, avoiding foreclosure 

rescue scams, and identity theft.

Consumers

Office of the 

Comptroller of the 

Currency 

Consumer education 

activities

Websites, consumer advisories, public service 

announcements, community outreach, and print and 

radio advertisements aimed at educating consumers 

about banking and other financial issues.

Consumers

Office of Personnel 

Management

Retirement Readiness 

NOW

Retirement education strategy designed to provide 

information that will help federal employees plan for 

retirement and calculate the investment needed to 

meet retirement goals. 

Federal employees

Securities and 

Exchange Commission

Office of Investor 

Education and Advocacy

Provides information to help individual investors 

evaluate current and potential investments, make 

informed decisions, and avoid fraud.

Investors

Social Security 

Administration

Financial Literacy 

Research Consortium

Supported 2-year cooperative agreements with 

Boston College, RAND Corporation, and the 

University of Wisconsin to develop innovative 

materials and programs to help Americans plan for a 

secure retirement. 

Adults preparing for 

retirement

Housing Counseling and Foreclosure Mitigation

Department of Housing 

and Urban 

Development

Housing Counseling 

Assistance Program

Certifies and oversees housing counseling providers. 

Provides competitive grants to approved housing 

counseling agencies that provide prepurchase and 

postpurchase counseling, assistance to renters, 

homeless populations, and those seeking to resolve 

mortgage delinquency. Counseling may take place in 

person, over the phone, or via a self-study computer 

module or workbook. 

Low-to moderate-income 

families

Department of the 

Treasury

Financial Education and 

Counseling Pilot Program

Competitive grants to organizations to provide 

financial education and counseling to prospective 

homebuyers.

Prospective homebuyers

NeighborWorks 

America 

National Foreclosure 

Mitigation Counseling 

Program 

Competitive grants to housing counseling agencies to 

provide one-on-one counseling services for 

foreclosure prevention.

Homeowners at risk of 

foreclosure

Other housing counseling 

activities

Expendable grants for which housing counseling is an 

eligible activity.

Current and prospective 

homeowners

Source: GAO analysis based on information from federal agencies and interviews with agency staff.
 

Page 12 GAO-12-588 Federal Financial Literacy Programs

In prior work, we cited a 2009 report that had identified 56 federal 

financial literacy programs among 20 agencies.10 That report, issued by 

the RAND Corporation, was based on a survey conducted by Treasury 

and the Department of Education that had asked federal agencies to selfidentify their financial literacy efforts. However, our subsequent analysis 

of these 56 programs found a high degree of inconsistency in how 

different agencies defined financial literacy programs or efforts and 

whether they counted related efforts as one or multiple programs. We 

believe that our count of 16 significant federal financial literacy programs 

or activities and 4 housing counseling programs is based on a more 

consistent set of criteria.11 (See app. II for a crosswalk between the 56 

programs cited in a previous report and the 20 programs highlighted in 

this report.) We defined “significant” financial literacy programs or 

activities as those that were relatively comprehensive in scope or scale—

that is, financial literacy was a key element rather than a minimal 

component or tangential goal. We did not include programs or activities 

that (1) provided financial information related to the administration of the 

program itself—such as information on applying for student financial aid 

or evaluating Medicare choices—rather than information aimed at 

increasing the beneficiaries’ financial literacy and comprehension more 

generally; (2) were purely internal to the agency, such as information 

provided to agency employees on their employment and retirement 

benefits; or (3) represented individualized services or advice, such as 

assistance with tax preparation.12

 

10GAO, List of Selected Federal Programs That Have Similar or Overlapping Objectives, 

Provide Similar Services, or Are Fragmented Across Government Missions, 

Apart from the programs cited in the 

tables above, some additional federal agencies address financial literacy 

on a smaller scale. For example, the website of the Federal Deposit 

Insurance Corporation (FDIC) includes such things as tips on banking 

and protecting your money, and information on foreclosure prevention, 

GAO-11-474R (Washington, D. C.: Mar. 18, 2011); and GAO-11-318SP. Angela A. Hung, 

Kata Mihaly, and Joanne K. Yoong (RAND Corporation), “Federal Financial and Economic 

Literacy Education Programs, 2009” (Santa Monica, Calif.: 2010).

http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/technical_reports/2010/RAND_TR857.pdf. 

11Our review was based on programs in place in fiscal year 2010; as noted earlier, at least 

three of the programs in place at that time were not funded in fiscal year 2012. 

12Although the financial literacy activities of the Department of Defense’s Family Support 

Centers are largely internal to the agency, we made an exception and included them 

because they serve more than 7 million individuals and provide a broad range of 

counseling and services.
 

Page 13 GAO-12-588 Federal Financial Literacy Programs

identity theft, and deposit insurance. In addition, the website of the 

Commodity Futures Trading Commission provides information on fraud 

awareness and prevention related to trading futures and options.

Fragmentation of financial literacy programs has evolved over a number 

of years, as a result both of statutory requirements and efforts undertaken 

at the initiative of federal agencies in addressing their missions.13

• The Office of Personnel Management’s Retirement Readiness NOW 

program and the development of a retirement financial literacy 

strategy for federal employees were required by the Thrift Savings 

Plan Open Elections Act of 2004.

Congress directed the creation of some programs and initiatives, 

examples of which include the following:

14

• The Financial Education and Counseling Pilot Program was created 

by the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008.15

• The Financial Education for College Access and Success Program 

was authorized under the Fund for the Improvement of Education 

Program under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 

1965.16

• The National Foreclosure Mitigation Counseling Program was 

authorized through the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2008, which 

sought to address the mortgage foreclosure crisis by providing 

homeowner counseling and strengthening the nation’s counseling 

capacity.17

 

13We define fragmentation to refer to those circumstances in which more than one federal 

agency (or more than one organization within an agency) is involved in the same broad 

area of national need.

14Pub. L. 108-469, § 2, 118 Stat. 3892 (2004), 5 U.S.C. § 8350 Note.

15Pub. L. No. 110-289, § 1132, 122 Stat. 2654, 2727 (2008), 12 U.S.C. § 1701x Note.

16Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, as amended, Pub. L. No. 89-10, 79 

Stat. 27, 20 U.S.C. §§ 7243-7243b.

17Pub. L No. 110-161, Div. K, Title III, 121 Stat. 1844, 2441 (2008).
 

Page 14 GAO-12-588 Federal Financial Literacy Programs

• CFPB was created by the Dodd-Frank Act, which specified the 

creation of the bureau’s Office of Financial Education and its role in 

promoting financial literacy.18

Other financial literacy programs were initiated by agencies as part of 

their mission. For example, in line with the Securities and Exchange 

Commission’s (SEC) mission as the primary overseer and regulator of the 

U.S. securities markets, the agency created the Office of Investor 

Education and Advocacy, which gives investors information to evaluate 

current and potential investments, make informed decisions, and avoid 

fraudulent schemes. Similarly, the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) 

financial literacy efforts have stemmed from its responsibilities for 

enforcing laws and regulations against unfair or deceptive acts or 

practices and protecting consumers in the marketplace.

Having multiple federal agencies involved in financial literacy efforts can 

have certain advantages. Some agencies have deep and long-standing 

expertise and experience addressing a specific issue area. For example, 

HUD has long been a repository for information on housing issues, SEC 

on investment issues, and the Department of Labor and Social Security 

Administration on retirement issues. Some agencies also have deep 

knowledge and ties to particular populations and may be the most 

efficient and natural conduit to providing them with information and 

services, as with the Department of Defense’s (DOD) role in providing 

financial information and counseling to servicemembers and their 

families. In addition, providing information from multiple sources or in 

multiple formats can increase consumer access and the likelihood of 

educating more people. We have previously reported that different 

populations respond to different types of delivery mechanisms, such as 

one-on-one credit counseling, employer-provided retirement seminars, 

and classroom-based education.19

At the same time, fragmentation increases the risk of inefficiency and 

duplication of efforts. Our detailed review of financial literacy efforts 

across the federal government has uncovered no duplication—that is, 

cases where two or more agencies or programs were engaging in the 

 

18Dodd-Frank Act, § 1011, 124 Stat. 1376, 1964 (2010), 12 U.S.C. § 5491.

19GAO, Financial Literacy: A Federal Certification Process for Providers Would Pose 

Challenges, GAO-11-614 (Washington, D.C.: June 28, 2011).
 

Page 15 GAO-12-588 Federal Financial Literacy Programs

same efforts and providing the same services to the same beneficiaries.

In our analysis of the 20 significant financial literacy and housing 

counseling programs, we found that programs and efforts had differing

focuses in terms of subject matter, target audience, or delivery method.

This finding is largely consistent with prior reviews of the federal 

government’s financial literacy efforts. In 2006, the Financial Literacy and 

Education Commission reported that it had studied federal financial 

literacy programs or resources and said it found minimal overlap and 

duplication among programs, noting that even when different agencies’ 

programs sometimes appeared similar, closer inspection revealed 

important differences in things like the target audience, delivery platform, 

or specific content. In response to a recommendation we made that the 

commission engage an independent third party to assess these issues, 

two subsequent studies were conducted. The first study, contracted by 

Treasury to assess federal programs, reported little evidence of 

duplication of programs or resources based on comparisons of the 

intended program goals and targeted audiences of the assessed 

programs and major resources.20

Our review did identify cases of overlap—that is, multiple agencies or 

programs with similar goals and activities. For example, as shown earlier, 

in fiscal year 2010 there were four discrete housing counseling programs 

or activities, which were administered by HUD, NeighborWorks America, 

and Treasury.

The second study resulted in the 

previously discussed 2009 report by the RAND Corporation, which sought 

to create a comprehensive catalog of existing federal financial literacy 

programs. It did not identify clear duplication, but it did note that multiple 

areas of overlap in subject matter and target audiences warranted more 

thorough investigation.

21

 

20Sarah Baughman, Financial Literacy and Education Commission Independent 

Evaluation Final Report (Blacksburg, Va.: May 25, 2009).

HUD’s Housing Counseling Assistance Program funded a 

wide range of housing counseling, including prepurchase and 

postpurchase counseling and counseling related to foreclosure mitigation 

and prevention of predatory lending, as well as counseling services for 

21Programs at DOD and the Department of Veterans Affairs also provide some elements 

of housing counseling. DOD’s Military OneSource and Military and Family Life Consultant 

Program provide foreclosure counseling for servicemembers returning home from active 

duty abroad, and the Department of Veterans Affairs has loan counselors that address 

housing issues in its Regional Loan Centers to help veterans facing foreclosure or other 

financial problems.
 

Page 16 GAO-12-588 Federal Financial Literacy Programs

renters and homeless populations.22

Similarly, five different financial literacy programs were directed at youth 

or young adults in fiscal year 2010. Three of these programs—Money 

Smart for Young Adults, Money Math, and the National Financial 

Capability Challenge—delivered information on similar topics, such as 

saving, budgeting, and borrowing, largely via instructor-led lesson plans.

The Excellence in Economic Education Program and the Financial 

Education for College Access and Success Program both supported the 

development of personal finance instructional materials and teacher 

training on personal finance. In addition, FTC addresses youth financial 

literacy through an interactive website where youth can play games, 

design advertisements, and learn about activities related to target 

marketing, supply and demand, privacy protection, and bogus offers. The 

website of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System also 

offers interactive games and classroom activities on its website for youth 

and young adults. Treasury staff told us that while all of these programs 

serve youth or young adults, there are significant variations among them 

in approach and in content. The staff noted, for example, that the goal of 

the National Financial Capability Challenge is to encourage the teaching 

of financial topics, rather than to provide content, and that the curricula of 

the Money Math and Money Smart for Young Adults programs differ 

substantially from each other.

Treasury’s Financial Education and 

Counseling Pilot Program had goals similar to HUD’s program, although it 

focused solely on prepurchase counseling and was intended, in part, to 

establish innovative program models for organizations to carry out 

effective counseling services. NeighborWorks also provided some 

prepurchase counseling and administered the foreclosure mitigation 

counseling program designed to help homeowners work with lenders to 

cure delinquencies. HUD and NeighborWorks meet regularly and closely 

coordinate activities to be complementary, according to HUD staff.

Another example of overlap can be found in two federal financial literacy 

programs designed specifically for adult women. The Department of 

Labor’s Wi$eUp program targeted Generation X and Y women—women 

generally born between the mid-1960s and the mid-1990s—and the 

 

22Prepurchase counseling generally helps potential homebuyers learn about buying a 

home and explains the financial responsibilities of homeownership. Postpurchase 

counseling includes topics such as foreclosure mitigation, budgeting, and home 

maintenance. 
 

Page 17 GAO-12-588 Federal Financial Literacy Programs

Department of Health and Human Services’ National Education and 

Resource Center on Women and Retirement Planning targeted 

traditionally hard-to-reach women, such as low-income women, women of 

color, and women with limited English proficiency. Both programs cover 

some of the same topic areas, such as retirement planning, investing, and 

money basics such as budgeting, saving, and banking. However, staff at 

the Department of Labor and the Department of Health and Human 

Services noted that the programs target different users, have different 

goals, and engage in different activities—for example, Wi$eUp is an 

online and classroom curriculum, while the National Resource Center 

uses peer counselors and offers information through model programs, 

workshops tailored to meet special needs, and print and web-based 

publications.

Additional overlap is evident with the activities of CFPB, which was 

created by the Dodd-Frank Act and became a standing organization in 

July 2011. The act established within CFPB an Office of Financial 

Education and charged it with developing and implementing initiatives 

intended to educate and empower consumers to make better informed 

financial decisions. Specifically, the office was directed to provide 

opportunities for consumers to access, among other things, financial 

counseling; information to assist consumers with understanding credit 

products, histories, and scores; information about savings and borrowing 

tools; and assistance in developing long-term savings strategies and 

wealth building. The duties of this office are in some ways similar to those 

of Treasury’s Office of Financial Access, Financial Education, and 

Consumer Protection, a small office that also seeks to broadly improve 

Americans’ financial literacy.23

 

23In April 2012, Treasury changed the name of the Office of Financial Education and 

Financial Access to the Office of Financial Access, Financial Education, and Consumer 

Protection, and the office has taken on new functions related to consumer protection.

Treasury established this office in 2002 

and tasked it with developing and implementing financial education policy 

initiatives and overseeing and coordinating Treasury’s outreach efforts. 

Further, the Dodd-Frank Act charged CFPB with developing and 

implementing a strategy on improving the financial literacy of consumers, 

even though the Financial Literacy and Education Commission already 

has its own statutory mandate to develop, and update as necessary, a 

national strategy for financial literacy. CFPB staff told us that its own 

national strategy for financial literacy will serve as an operating plan that 

Creation of CFPB May 

Provide Opportunities for 

Consolidation 
 

Page 18 GAO-12-588 Federal Financial Literacy Programs

is distinct from, but broadly aligned with, the commission’s national 

strategy. Staff involved in financial literacy from Treasury and CFPB told 

us that they meet regularly and that the two agencies are working closely 

together to ensure collaboration and avoid duplication.

CFPB also has other offices that are charged with financial literacy duties 

that are in some ways similar to those of other federal agencies. For 

example, the Dodd-Frank Act created within CFPB an Office of 

Servicemember Affairs, which is responsible for, among other things, 

developing and implementing initiatives intended to educate 

servicemembers and their families and empower them to make better 

informed decisions regarding consumer financial products and services, 

monitoring complaints, and coordinating efforts among federal and state 

agencies regarding consumer protection measures. These activities 

potentially overlap with those of DOD, whose Personal Financial 

Managers on military installations provide financial educational programs, 

partnerships, counseling, legal protections, and other resources designed 

to help servicemembers and their families. Staff of CFPB’s Office of 

Servicemember Affairs told us that the office has been actively reaching 

out to servicemembers where they live in order to assess their needs, and 

between January 2011 and May 2012, the office held 84 events attended 

by more than 24,000 people and visited 37 military installations and 

National Guard units. Staff also told us that they have taken several steps 

to avoid duplicating DOD’s Financial Readiness Program. For example, 

they said they will be focusing on reaching servicemembers in the 

Delayed Entry Program, a period prior to boot camp during which DOD 

does not yet engage in financial education. In addition, CFPB staff said 

they have been meeting monthly with DOD’s Deputy Assistant Secretary 

of Defense for Military Community and Family Policy and his staff to 

coordinate their activities to avoid duplication across agencies. CFPB and 

DOD have also developed two Joint Statements of Principles, one on how 

they are going to handle complaints and the other on educational efforts 

and small-dollar lending.

In addition, CFPB and several other agencies provide financial literacy 

services that target older Americans. The Dodd-Frank Act created the 

Office of Financial Protection for Older Americans within CFPB and 

charged the office to develop goals for programs that provide financial 

literacy and counseling to help seniors recognize the warning signs of 

unfair, deceptive, or abusive practices, and protect themselves from such 

practices. These activities potentially overlap with those of FTC, which 

also plays a role in helping seniors avoid unfair and deceptive practices.

For example, FTC has provided information to seniors on a range of 
 

Page 19 GAO-12-588 Federal Financial Literacy Programs

topics, such as obtaining credit over the age of 62, avoiding charity fraud, 

recognizing and reporting telemarketing fraud, and avoiding scammers 

who may pose as friends, family, or government agencies. In an effort to 

work together and avoid duplication, CFPB and FTC finalized a 

memorandum of understanding in January 2012 to help, among other 

things, cooperate on consumer education efforts, promote consistency of 

messages, and maximize the use of educational resources. The DoddFrank Act also charged the Office of Financial Protection for Older 

Americans to develop goals for programs that provide one-on-one 

financial counseling on long-term savings and later-life economic security.

As discussed earlier, the Department of Labor’s Saving Matters 

Retirement Savings Education Campaign also plays a role in educating 

consumers on retirement issues and the Social Security Administration 

had a special initiative, as part of an earlier strategic plan, to encourage 

saving and to inform the public about its programs. In January 2012, staff 

at CFPB told us that the Office of Financial Protection for Older 

Americans had only recently become fully staffed and that the office had 

begun working with other federal and state agencies to identify best 

practices for educating and counseling senior citizens, identifying unfair 

and deceptive practices targeting this population, and advocating on their 

behalf.

Other potential areas of overlap include CFPB’s Office of Fair Lending 

and Equal Opportunity, which plays a role in providing education on fair 

lending, as do the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, FDIC, and 

FTC. CFPB has also created an Office for Students to work with 

complaints and questions regarding student loans. However, the 

Department of Education already has a number of web-based tools in 

place to help students understand financial aid and student loans. CFPB 

staff told us that one key distinction is that CFPB addresses private 

student loans, while the Department of Education addresses federally 

supported student loans. They also noted that they are coordinating with 

the Department of Education and have developed a memorandum of 

understanding with the department, and have jointly designed a standard 

student loan award letter and fact sheet.

The Dodd-Frank Act gave CFPB a primary role in addressing financial 

literacy, and the agency’s Office of Financial Education—staffed at 10 fulltime equivalents as of June 2012—has significant financial literacy 

resources relative to many other agencies. Yet there are similarities in 

mission between CFPB’s statutory responsibilities and those of certain 

other federal entities. As we have noted in the past, federal programs 

contributing to the same or similar results should collaborate to help 
 

Page 20 GAO-12-588 Federal Financial Literacy Programs

ensure that goals are consistent and, as appropriate, program efforts are 

mutually reinforcing.24

The creation of multiple efforts within the federal government to address 

financial literacy has been the result of both legislation and initiatives 

within agencies. We have noted in the past that fragmentation in 

government programs often is the result of an adaptive and responsive 

federal government.

Collaborating agencies should work together to 

define and agree on their respective roles and responsibilities and, in 

doing so, clarify who will do what and organize their joint and individual 

efforts. As noted above, during its initial development, CFPB has been 

meeting with other federal entities to coordinate their efforts. Ensuring 

clear delineation of the respective roles and responsibilities between 

CFPB and agencies with overlapping financial literacy responsibilities is 

essential to help ensure efficient use of resources.

25 As new needs were identified, the common 

response has been a proliferation of responsibilities and roles to federal 

departments and agencies, perhaps targeted to a new audience or 

involving a new subject area. However, overlap and fragmentation among 

government programs or activities can, in some circumstances, lead to 

inefficiency, and the President and some members of Congress have set 

a goal of reorganizing and consolidating federal agencies to reduce the 

number of overlapping government programs.26 In addition, as noted 

earlier, the multiagency Financial Literacy and Education Commission

was charged by statute with proposing means of eliminating overlap and 

duplication among federal financial literacy activities.27

 

24GAO, Results-Oriented Government: Practices That Can Help Enhance and Sustain 

Collaboration among Federal Agencies, 

The creation of 

CFPB, which will play a primary role in financial literacy, provides an 

opportunity for the commission and its member agencies to consider 

options for consolidating federal financial literacy efforts, which could help 

ensure the most efficient and effective use of federal resources in this 

area. While our February 2012 report stated that we expected to suggest 

GAO-06-15 (Washington, D.C.: Oct. 21, 2005).

25GAO, Managing for Results: Using the Results Act to Address Mission Fragmentation 

and Program Overlap, GAO/AIMD-97-146 (Washington, D.C.: Aug. 29, 1997).

26For example, see Executive Office of the President, Building a 21st Century 

Government by Cutting Duplication, Fragmentation, and Waste (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 

28, 2012). 

27Pub. L. No. 108-159, § 514(f)(2)(d), 117 Stat. 1952, 2006 (Dec. 4, 2003) (codified at 20 

U.S.C. § 9703(f)(2)(d)).
 

Page 21 GAO-12-588 Federal Financial Literacy Programs

that Congress consider options for such consolidation, the commission is 

better positioned to do so and this would be consistent with its statutory 

responsibility to address overlap and duplication.

In addition to CFPB’s efforts cited above, there has been a significant 

amount of coordination among other federal agencies with regard to their 

financial literacy efforts, as well as evidence of collaboration among 

federal agencies and state, local, nonprofit, and private entities. The 

Financial Literacy and Education Commission has played a key role in 

fostering this coordination and collaboration. However, its national 

strategy does not include a discussion of the appropriate allocation of 

federal resources.

Federal agencies involved in addressing financial literacy have a variety 

of mechanisms for coordinating their efforts, examples of which include 

the following:

• The Government Interagency Group is a working group of programlevel staff from federal agencies that address financial literacy. The 

group meets three times a year to share ideas and best practices. The 

group is organized by the American Savings Education Council, a 

nonprofit organization and national coalition of public and private 

sector institutions focused on savings and retirement planning.

• The Department of Education, FDIC, and the National Credit Union 

Administration signed an agreement in November 2010 designed to 

encourage partnerships between schools, financial institutions, federal 

grantees, and other stakeholders to educate students about saving, 

budgeting and making wise financial decisions.

• SEC has partnered with the Department of Labor to develop guidance 

to help individuals understand the operations and risks of target-date 

fund investments, which are often mutual funds that change 

automatically to become more conservative as the fund’s target date 

approaches. SEC has also worked with the Internal Revenue Service 

to include an insert about SEC’s investor education resources, 

Agencies Coordinate 

Their Efforts, but 

Opportunities Exist to 

Better Address the 

Appropriate 

Allocation of 

Resources 

Coordination and 

Collaboration Occur 

through a Variety of Means
 

Page 22 GAO-12-588 Federal Financial Literacy Programs

including its Investor.gov education website, in the mailing of tax 

refund checks.

• As part of its Retirement Financial Literacy and Education Strategy for 

federal employees, the Office of Personnel Management has efforts 

under way to provide training and tools to the benefits officers of 

individual federal agencies, and to identify existing resources that 

federal agencies might use for the financial education of their 

employees.

• The Department of Labor and the Social Security Administration have 

worked together with AARP—a nonprofit organization focused on 

people age 50 and over—to host workshops for workers nearing 

retirement.

In addition to interagency coordination, the federal government has 

certain mechanisms in place to coordinate or partner with nonfederal 

entities, including states and localities and nonprofit and private entities. 

In January 2010, the President’s Advisory Council on Financial Capability 

was created by executive order.28 The council was tasked with a number 

of specific charges, including advising the President and the Secretary of 

the Treasury on: financial education efforts, promoting financial products 

and services that are beneficial to consumers (especially low- and 

moderate-income consumers), and promoting understanding of effective 

use of such products and services. In its January 2012 interim report, the 

council recommended that Treasury support a newly created privatesector award program recognizing employers that provide outstanding 

financial education to their employees.29

 

28Exec. Order No. 13,530, 75 Fed. Reg. 5481 (Jan. 29, 2010). Prior to the President’s 

Advisory Council on Financial Capability, created by President Obama, there was the 

President’s Advisory Council on Financial Literacy, which was created by executive order 

by President Bush in January 2008. Exec. Order No. 13,455, 73 Fed. Reg. 4445 (Jan. 22, 

2008). 

The council meets regularly and 

has established subcommittees to address issues related to research and 

evaluation, partnerships between the public and private sectors, 

expanding financial access to low- and moderate-income households, 

and youth.

29U.S. Department of the Treasury, Interim Report: President’s Advisory Council on 

Financial Capability (Washington D.C.: Jan. 18, 2012). 
 

Page 23 GAO-12-588 Federal Financial Literacy Programs

To facilitate and advance financial literacy at the state and local levels, 

the Financial Literacy and Education Commission created the National 

Financial Education Network for State and Local Governments in April 

2007. Network members include state and local agencies and national 

organizations that share information through activities including periodic 

conference calls and a web-based database of financial literacy projects 

and programs.

Some federal agencies also partner with nonprofit and private 

organizations to expand outreach. Many federal agencies are members of 

Jump$tart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy, a nonprofit 

partnership that focuses on financial literacy for young adults. Treasury 

partnered with Jump$tart, the University of Missouri-St. Louis and 

Citigroup to develop Money Math: Lessons for Life, a financial literacy 

curriculum supplement for educators. FDIC has signed collaboration 

agreements or reached informal agreements with more than 1,200 active 

“alliance members” that promote or enhance the implementation of its 

Money Smart curriculum. Alliance members include financial institutions, 

schools or other educational service providers, military installations, 

community-based organizations, faith-based groups, employment and 

training service providers, government agencies, and other organizations. 

Likewise, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System

participates in Bank On USA programs, which are locally led coalitions of 

government agencies, financial institutions, and community organizations 

that focus on financial education and access for individuals and families 

who do not use mainstream financial institutions.

Federal agencies also collaborate with nonfederal entities with regard to 

financial literacy through the process of administering grants. For 

example, HUD provides training, guidance, and technical assistance to a 

network of community-based counseling agencies that it funds through its 

Housing Counseling Assistance Program. HUD also works with 

NeighborWorks, which is partially funded through HUD, in implementing 

the National Foreclosure Mitigation Counseling Program. Additionally, the 

Department of Agriculture collaborates with land-grant universities on 

financial literacy projects through grants provided by its National Institute 

of Food and Agriculture.30

 

30A land-grant college or university is an institution of higher education designated by its 

state to receive certain federal benefits where the focus is to be on the teaching of 

agriculture, science, and engineering.

Also, DOD has collaborated with land-grant 
 

Page 24 GAO-12-588 Federal Financial Literacy Programs

universities to offer programs and classes for military families and 

veterans.

Federal agencies have also collaborated with academic researchers and 

organizations on financial literacy research and product development. For 

example, in October 2008, Treasury and the Department of Agriculture 

convened a National Research Symposium on Financial Literacy and 

Education that sought to identify gaps in existing research and develop 

research priorities. Twenty-nine experts in the fields of behavioral and 

consumer economics, financial risk assessment, and financial education 

evaluation joined to summarize existing financial research findings, 

identify gaps in the literature, and define and prioritize questions for future 

analysis. In addition, through the Financial Literacy Research Consortium 

funded in fiscal years 2009 and 2010, the Social Security Administration 

worked with Boston College, RAND Corporation, and the University of 

Wisconsin to develop financial literacy educational tools and programs 

focusing on retirement savings and planning.

In general, we found that coordination and collaboration among federal 

agencies with regard to financial literacy has improved in recent years, in 

large part due to the efforts of the Financial Literacy and Education 

Commission. As noted earlier, the commission is currently comprised of 

21 federal entities and was charged with, among other things, 

coordinating federal financial literacy efforts and promoting partnerships

among federal, state, and local governments; nonprofit organizations; and 

private enterprises. Before the formation of the commission, agencies had 

no formal mechanism within the federal government through which to 

coordinate on financial literacy activities. In a 2006 report, we noted that 

the commission enhanced communication and collaboration among 

agencies involved in financial literacy by creating a single focal point for 

federal agencies to come together on the issue of financial literacy. The 

commission also developed a national strategy that included calls to 

action on interagency efforts.31

 

31GAO, Financial Literacy and Education Commission: Further Progress Needed to 

Ensure an Effective National Strategy, 

Additional activities undertaken by the 

commission to foster coordination or collaboration include the following:

GAO-07-100 (Washington, D.C.: Dec. 4, 2006).

The Financial Literacy and 

Education Commission 

Has Improved 

Coordination but Has Not 

Addressed Resource 

Allocation 
 

Page 25 GAO-12-588 Federal Financial Literacy Programs

• Meetings and working groups. The commission holds formal meetings 

three times per year and, at the staff level, has several working 

groups, each represented by several federal agencies, including 

teams devoted to implementing the national strategy, promoting 

research and evaluation, and improving financial access.

• MyMoney.gov website. The commission was charged by statute with 

developing a financial education website that provides a coordinated 

point of entry for information about federal financial literacy programs 

and grants. The commission launched the MyMoney.gov website in 

October 2004.

• Clearinghouse of research and resources. The commission is in the 

process of developing a clearinghouse of federal research and 

resources on financial literacy. This clearinghouse will aggregate 

financial literacy research and information across federal agencies in 

one public website.

• Reviews of federal activities. As discussed earlier, the commission 

and Treasury contracted for two reports that cataloged and reviewed 

financial literacy efforts across the federal government, which helped 

inform federal agencies of each other’s activities and foster 

opportunities for coordination and collaboration.

In April 2006, the Financial Literacy and Education Commission issued a 

national strategy, which it was required by law to develop and modify as 

necessary, and in December 2010, it issued Promoting Financial Success 

in the United States: National Strategy for Financial Literacy 2011.

32

 

32Pub. L. No. 108-159, § 514(h), 117 Stat. 1952, 2004 (Dec. 4, 2003) (codified at 20 

U.S.C. § 9703(h)). Financial Literacy and Education Commission, Taking Ownership of 

the Future: The National Strategy for Financial Literacy (Washington, D.C.: April 2006), 

and Financial Literacy and Education Commission, Promoting Financial Success in the 

United States: National Strategy for Financial Literacy 2011 (Washington, D.C.: December 

2010).

In 

our 2006 report, we found that the commission’s first national strategy 

was a useful first step in focusing attention on financial literacy but was 

largely descriptive rather than strategic. We noted that the strategy only 

partially included certain characteristics that we consider to be desirable 

in any national strategy, including a description of resources required to 

implement the strategy. Our review of the 2011 national strategy indicates 

that it still does not fully address this element. An effective national 
 

Page 26 GAO-12-588 Federal Financial Literacy Programs

strategy should include a discussion of resources, describing what a 

strategy will cost, the sources and types of resources needed, and where 

those resources should be targeted. The 2011 national strategy 

discusses the consumer education resources that the federal government 

makes available to consumers, and it sets building public awareness of 

these resources as a goal. However, the 2011 strategy still does not 

address the level and type of resources needed to implement the 

strategy, nor does it review the budgetary resources available to federal 

agencies for financial literacy efforts and how they might best be 

allocated. We have noted in the past that the governance structure of the 

commission presents challenges in addressing resource issues: it relies 

on the consensus of more than 20 federal agencies, has no independent 

budget, and has no legal authority to compel member agencies to take 

any action.33 However, the commission does have the ability to at least 

identify resource needs and make recommendations or provide guidance 

on how Congress or federal agencies might allocate scarce federal 

financial literacy resources for maximum benefit. Without a clear 

description of resource needs, policymakers lack information to help 

direct the strategy’s implementation, and without recommendations on 

resource allocations, policymakers lack information to help ensure the 

most efficient and effective use of federal funds. Additionally, addressing 

resource needs and allocations in the commission’s national strategy 

would facilitate its statutory responsibility, discussed earlier, to propose 

means of eliminating overlap and duplication among federal financial 

literacy activities.

 

33GAO, Financial Literacy and Education Commission: Progress Made in Fostering 

Partnerships, but National Strategy Remains Largely Descriptive Rather Than Strategic, 

GAO-09-638T (Washington, D.C.: Apr.29, 2009). 
 

Page 27 GAO-12-588 Federal Financial Literacy Programs

Most federal financial literacy activities include an evaluation component, 

but variation in the types of activities and the methods of evaluation 

create challenges in comparing results across programs. As we reported 

in June 2011, relatively few evidence-based evaluations of financial 

literacy programs have been conducted, limiting what is known about 

which specific methods and strategies—and which federal financial 

literacy activities—are most effective.34 Several federal agencies have 

efforts under way seeking to determine the most effective approaches 

and programs.

The wide range of federal financial literacy programs and activities and 

their evaluation metrics and methods, makes it difficult to systematically 

assess overall effectiveness or compare results across programs. Among 

the 20 significant federal financial literacy and housing counseling 

programs that we reviewed, we found that nearly all had assessed or 

measured their activities in some manner and, where feasible, many had 

undertaken some method of seeking to measure outcomes. Some of 

these evaluations sought to assess the effect of the program on the 

actual behavior of program participants and some assessed the effect of 

the program on knowledge, attitudes, or anticipated behavior. As we have 

reported in the past, in general the ultimate goal of financial education is 

to favorably affect consumer behavior, such as to promote improved 

saving and spending habits and wise use of credit. As such, financial 

literacy program evaluations are most reliable and effective when they 

measure the programs’ impact on consumers’ behavior. While there is 

fairly extensive literature on financial literacy in general, relatively few 

evaluations of financial literacy programs have been published that use 

empirical evidence to measure a program’s impact on the participants’ 

behavior.35

In addition, there are many significant challenges to rigorous and 

definitive evaluations of financial literacy programs. Outcome-based 

evaluation can be expensive and methodologically challenging, 

particularly long-term evaluation using a controlled experimental 

 

34GAO, Financial Literacy: A Federal Certification Process for Providers Would Pose 

Challenges, GAO-11-614 (Washington, D.C.: June 28, 2011).

35GAO-11-614. 

Overall Effectiveness 

of Federal Financial 

Literacy Programs Is 

Difficult to Measure, 

but Additional 

Evaluation Efforts 

Are Under Way

Agencies Assess Their 

Financial Literacy Efforts 

in Various Ways
 

Page 28 GAO-12-588 Federal Financial Literacy Programs

methodology, which can be especially time and labor intensive.36 As well, 

measuring a change in participant behavior is much more difficult than 

measuring a gain in knowledge, which can often be captured through a 

simple exam at program completion. Some financial literacy programs 

and activities, such as those using broadcast media to disseminate 

information, may also simply not be well-suited to outcome-based 

evaluation because the program has no direct contact with the intended 

audience. Further, given the many variables that can affect consumer 

behavior and decision making, ascribing long-term changes to a particular 

program is difficult. In addition, some program activities, such as posting 

a webpage, may be too small in scope to warrant conducting an outcome 

evaluation study, so tracking output measures—such as the number of 

individuals served or the volume of materials distributed—may be the only 

feasible option. One academic review of financial literacy evaluations 

found that the majority of financial literacy programs it reviewed measured 

only program outputs.37

Among the federal financial literacy programs and activities we reviewed, 

we identified a number of cases in which evaluation included at least 

some assessment of the effect on consumer behavior of activities 

operated or funded by federal agencies:

• National Foreclosure Mitigation Counseling Program. NeighborWorks 

contracted with the Urban Institute for a study resulting in a series of 

reports, the most recent of which was published in December 2011, 

which evaluated program outcomes of the federally funded National 

Foreclosure Mitigation Counseling program. The study found that 

among homeowners who received loan modifications, those who 

received counseling under the program were more likely to avoid 

entering foreclosure, successfully cure existing foreclosures, or obtain 

 

36A controlled experimental methodology is a research design that randomly assigns 

participants to treatment and control groups in order to rigorously analyze the effects of 

the studied activity.

37Angela C. Lyons, Lance Palmer, Koralalage S. U. Jayaratne, and Erik Scherpf, “Are We 

Making the Grade? A National Overview of Financial Education and Program Evaluation,” 

The Journal of Consumer Affairs 40 (2006): 208-35.
 

Page 29 GAO-12-588 Federal Financial Literacy Programs

favorable loan modifications than those who did not receive the 

counseling.38

• U.S. Army personal financial management training. In 2009, staff at 

the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System conducted a 

study of a U.S. Army personal financial management training, which 

included a 2-day financial education course taught by college staff for 

young servicemembers enlisted at a Texas army base. Participants 

were surveyed on their financial behaviors 6 months after completing 

the course and compared with a control group of soldiers who did not 

take the course. After controlling for other factors, the study found that 

the financial education course did not have a significant effect on most 

of the soldiers’ financial behaviors, such as comparison shopping, 

saving, and paying bills on time.39

• Money Smart. FDIC collaborated in an independent evaluation of the 

Money Smart program in 2003 that measured its effectiveness on a 

sample of adult program participants who did not have accounts at 

banks or other mainstream financial institutions. The study found that 

80 percent of those who completed Money Smart said they intended 

to open a bank account, although it did not collect data on whether 

they actually did so.40

 

38The Urban Institute, National Foreclosure Mitigation Counseling Program Evaluation: 

Final Report, Rounds 1 and 2 (Washington, D.C.: December 2011).

A second study conducted by FDIC in 2007 

surveyed individuals prior and subsequent to their participation in the 

program and also followed up by telephone 6 to 12 months after their 

final class. It found that participants were more likely to open deposit 

accounts, save money in a mainstream deposit product, use and 

adhere to a budget, and experience greater confidence in their 

39When controlling for multiple factors, the study found that the course did not have an 

impact on most financial behaviors, with the exception that soldiers who took the course 

were more likely than the comparison group to report using informal spending plans and 

less likely to report using formal spending plans. The authors controlled for the following 

additional factors: years in the military, pay grade, gender, education, race/ethnicity, 

marital status, premilitary experiences, and possession of a credit card. Catherine Bell, 

Daniel Gorin, and Jeanne M. Hogarth, Does Financial Education Affect Soldiers’ Financial 

Behavior? (Terre Haute, Ind.: Networks Financial Institute, August 2009).

40Angela Lyons and Erik Scherpf, An Evaluation of the FDIC’s Financial Literacy Program 

Money Smart (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, May 2003).
 

Page 30 GAO-12-588 Federal Financial Literacy Programs

financial abilities.41

• HUD housing counseling. In 2008, HUD published a report that 

presented a systematic overview of the housing counseling industry 

and HUD-approved housing counseling providers.

However, this study did not have the benefit of a 

control group—that is, it did not measure participants in the program 

against a comparison group that did not participate in the program.

FDIC is currently evaluating the effect of Money Smart for Young 

Adults on the financial knowledge and behavior of young adults (ages 

12 to 20). The agency said it expects the evaluation to be completed 

by the end of 2013.

42 In May 2012, two 

reports were published resulting from the Housing Counseling 

Outcome Evaluation. The first report looked at a sample of individuals 

who received foreclosure mitigation counseling from HUD-funded and 

HUD-approved agencies between August 2009 and December 

2009.43 The findings indicated that 18 months after initiating 

foreclosure counseling, 56 percent of homeowners were in the home 

and current on their payments, 28 percent were in the home and 

behind on their payments, and 16 percent were out of the home. 

However, the study did not include a control group to compare this 

group of homeowners to others who had not received foreclosure 

counseling. The second report examined prepurchase counseling and 

found that 35 percent of the study participants had become 

homeowners 18 months after seeking prepurchase counseling; this 

study also did not include a control group.44

 

41Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, A Longitudinal Evaluation of the Intermediateterm Impact of the Money Smart Financial Education Curriculum upon Consumers’ 

Behavior and Confidence (Washington, D.C.: Apr. 2007).

HUD is in the process of 

conducting an additional prepurchase counseling demonstration and 

impact evaluation that will track up to 6,000 individuals to examine the 

effectiveness of different housing counseling delivery methods 

42Christopher E. Herbert, Jennifer Turnham, and Christopher N. Rodger, The State of the 

Housing Counseling Industry, Abt Associates Inc. for the U.S. Department of Housing and 

Urban Development (Cambridge, Mass.: Sept. 2008).

43Anna Jefferson, Jonathan Spader, Jennifer Turnham, and Shawn Moulton, Foreclosure 

Counseling Outcome Study: Final Report, Abt Associates Inc. for the U.S. Department of 

Housing and Urban Development (Cambridge, Mass.: May 2012).

44Jennifer Turnham, and Anna Jefferson, Pre-Purchase Counseling Outcome Study: 

Research Brief, Abt Associates Inc. for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban 

Development (Bethesda, Md.: May 2012). 
 

Page 31 GAO-12-588 Federal Financial Literacy Programs

compared to a control group of individuals not receiving counseling.

Data collection is expected to begin around September 2012, and an 

initial report is expected by May 2014.

• Financial Literacy Research Consortium. In 2009 the Social Security 

Administration established a Financial Literacy Research Consortium 

that funded 63 research projects at three academic centers on a 

range of consumer financial behavior and retirement savings issues. 

According to agency staff, 11 of these projects included evaluations of 

the effectiveness of interventions designed to improve consumer 

financial literacy. For example, one study funded through the 

consortium at the University of Wisconsin found that a 5-hour online 

financial education module led to modest increases in knowledge of 

financial issues, but no changes in self-reported financial behaviors 3 

months later.45 Another project has randomly assigned 600 

homebuyers to varying combinations of financial planning 

interventions to be completed during the first year after home 

purchase.46 The project is ongoing, and evaluation of the 

effectiveness of the interventions will be conducted in subsequent 

years.47

• U.S. Department of Agriculture Family and Consumer Economics 

programs. The Department of Agriculture encourages land-grant 

institutions receiving grants for financial literacy activities to conduct 

some form of evaluation, and some grantees have sought to evaluate 

program outcomes. For example, researchers at Ohio State University 

examined the outcomes of a youth curriculum designed to enhance 

money management skills. Three months after the completion of the 

program, more than 80 percent of students in 6th-12th grades 

 

45J. Michael Collins, Online Financial Education for Employees: A Randomized 

Experiment (University of Wisconsin, CFS Research Brief (FLRC 11-13): October 2011).

46Stephanie Moulton, Cäzilia Loibl, J. Michael Collins, and Anya Savikhin, Field 

Experiments on the Impacts of Financial Planning Interventions for Recent Homebuyers,

University of Wisconsin Center for Financial Security Working Paper, October 2011.

47Although the Financial Literacy Consortium received no new funding after fiscal year 

2010, the Social Security Administration allowed three grantees funded by the consortium 

to use grant funds until September 29, 2012, to complete their projects.
 

Page 32 GAO-12-588 Federal Financial Literacy Programs

reported improvements in the extent to which they repaid money on 

time, set aside money for the future, and compared prices.48

• Financial Education for College Access and Success Program. In 

2010, the U.S. Department of Education’s Financial Education for 

College Access and Success Program provided a grant to the 

Tennessee Department of Education to measure the program’s effect 

on student knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors, including rates of 

financial aid form completion, college enrollment, decisions regarding 

financial aid, and use of financial products and services. Agency 

officials said that the study will also measure the effect of the project 

on the knowledge, attitudes, and instructional skills of participating 

teachers. Results of the study were not available as of May 2012.

• Financial Education and Counseling Pilot Program. Treasury requires 

the homebuyer counseling organizations that receive program grants 

to periodically report on the results of two output goals (numbers 

served and hours of service provided) and three outcome goals 

chosen by the grantees (such as changes in participant savings, 

credit scores, or debt). As of April 2012, limited information was 

available about the program’s impact because grantees had provided 

outcome data no earlier than 2011, while some of the desired 

outcomes of their programs can take years to realize.49

• Wi$eUp. As of 2010, more than 19,000 individuals had participated in 

Wi$eUp’s eight-module financial education curriculum. The program 

tracks the percentage of participants who, as a result of their 

participation, reduced their debt and increased their savings or 

investments. Individuals complete pre- and postassessments for each 

module and are asked to complete a 3-month follow-up assessment 

to determine the financial changes they have made. Sixty-nine 

percent of participants in programs conducted in 2009 by Texas 

A&M’s AgriLife Extension reported reducing their debt by a median of 

$500 since taking the Wi$eUp course, and 62 percent reported 

 

48Lisa Sotak, Theresa M. Ferrari, Nancy W. Hudson, Graham Cochran, and Beth L. 

Bridgeman, Outcomes of Participation in Real Money, Real World, 2007 Statewide 

Evaluation Final Report , Ohio State University Extension, Mar. 17, 2008.

49For additional information on the program, see GAO, Financial Education and 

Counseling Program, GAO-11-737R (Washington, D.C.: July 27, 2011).
 

Page 33 GAO-12-588 Federal Financial Literacy Programs

increasing their savings or investments.

Some agencies that we reviewed, while not assessing program effect on 

participant behavior, have reported on the effect on participant knowledge 

or attitudes or have future plans for evaluating behavior:

• Excellence in Economic Education Program. In 2009, program 

subgrantees gave standardized tests to 6,040 middle and high school 

students and 894 teachers shortly after they had completed the 

economics and personal finance instructional activities of the 

Excellence in Economic Education Program. Fifty-eight percent of 

students participating in projects funded through the program scored 

proficient on standardized tests of economics, personal finance, or 

both, compared to their target goal of 70 percent. In addition, 82 

percent of teachers participating in the projects showed a significant 

increase in their scores on a standardized measure of economic 

content knowledge, as compared to the target goal of 70 percent.

• Federal Reserve System. Staff of the Board of Governors of the 

Federal Reserve System told us that the board does not conduct 

assessments of its financial literacy activities. However, some regional 

Federal Reserve Banks—which are part of the system but are not 

themselves federal agencies—do assess their own financial literacy 

activities. For example, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, in 

partnership with the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, used thirdparty experts to conduct a 2-year assessment of the effectiveness of 

their financial literacy programs and materials, as well as to design 

and test tools for measuring knowledge gains and behavior changes.

• DOD Family Support Centers. DOD is in the second phase of the 

Military Family Life Project, a longitudinal department-wide survey of 

40,000 married active-duty servicemembers and 100,000 military 

spouses designed to capture the long-term impact of deployment on 

families and to improve the support provided to them. According to 

DOD staff, one purpose of the study is to assess the financial 

readiness of servicemembers. In addition, DOD staff told us that as 

part of a larger evaluation effort of its family support programs, DOD is 

collaborating with a team of researchers from Pennsylvania State 

University to develop outcome measures for the department’s 

financial readiness campaign and the services of its personal finance 

counselors. While the outcomes to be measured are still being 

determined, they may include changes in servicemembers’ financial 

knowledge and behaviors, the staff said.
 

Page 34 GAO-12-588 Federal Financial Literacy Programs

• Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. CFPB’s financial literacy 

efforts have not been in place long enough for evaluation, but staff 

told us that evaluation will be a key component of its financial literacy 

activities and, as discussed later in this report, the bureau’s Office of 

Financial Education contracted with a third party with specialized 

expertise to help assess the effectiveness of financial literacy 

programs.

Outcome-based evaluation is not always well suited for some financial 

literacy efforts, such as those that use mass media or distribute 

informational materials broadly. As such, several federal financial literacy 

programs that we reviewed collect information largely on output 

measures, such as number of individuals served or the volume of 

materials distributed. In some instances, the programs also measure the 

degree to which customers are satisfied with the service provided.

• Federal Trade Commission. FTC’s Division of Consumer and 

Business Education tracks its financial literacy activities based on 

materials distributed and webpages accessed by consumers and 

businesses. It reported that in 2010 it distributed more than 17 million 

publications and its consumer and business education websites were 

accessed more than 26 million times.

• Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. The agency collects data on 

the number of website hits, media placements, audience reach, and 

the dollar value of donated air time for its public service 

announcements. In fiscal year 2011, it ran four media campaigns 

related to financial literacy, which included print and radio features in 

English and Spanish that appeared 14,079 times in 44 states. Its 

Consumer Education websites received 699,904 visits.

• SEC Office of Investor Education and Advocacy. SEC measures the 

number of investors its education efforts reach, which was 17.8 million 

in fiscal year 2010. SEC staff told us they are planning a future 

evaluation that will include, among other things, customer satisfaction 

with usefulness of investor education programs and materials. In 

addition, the Dodd-Frank Act directed SEC to submit by July 21, 2012, 

a study of retail investors’ financial literacy, which must identify “the 

most effective existing private and public efforts to educate investors.” 

• National Education and Resource Center on Women and Retirement 

Planning. Staff at the Department of Health and Human Services told 

us they had not evaluated the program, but that the nonprofit 

administering the program had distributed more than 3,000 copies of 
 

Page 35 GAO-12-588 Federal Financial Literacy Programs

publications and training materials available at conferences and 

workshops directed to the financial services industry, women’s 

groups, advocacy groups, and senior centers.

• Treasury’s Office of Financial Access, Financial Education, and 

Consumer Protection. The office collects participation statistics for its 

National Financial Capability Challenge, which provides teaching 

resources and encouragement and tests high school students on 

personal finance topics, and reported 84,372 students and 2,517 

educators participating in 2011. The program also collects and 

publicly reports on average scores (by state and nationally), perfect 

scores, and students in the top 20 percent of scores nationally and by 

state.

• Saving Matters Retirement Savings Education Campaign. The 

Department of Labor conducts surveys at the program’s seminars and 

webcasts as part of an in-house evaluation process. The evaluations, 

conducted with the assistance of the Gallup Organization, assess the 

number of participants reached by the program, usefulness of the 

program, and satisfaction of participants, with a goal of an 85 percent 

satisfaction rate on its seminars, workshops, and webcasts. The 

department also tracks attendance at these events, the distribution of 

its publications, and the use of interactive online tools, videos, and 

webcast archives.

As discussed previously, several federal financial literacy programs—

such as Money Smart for Young Adults, HUD’s Housing Counseling 

Assistance Program, and the DOD Financial Readiness Campaign—are 

in the early stages of significant evaluations that may provide information 

about program effectiveness in the future. In addition to those evaluations 

of individual agency efforts, certain other federal efforts are under way 

that apply across agencies and seek more broadly to understand the 

most effective methods and strategies for improving financial literacy.50

• Financial Literacy and Education Commission. The 2011 national 

strategy and its implementation plan set as one of its four goals 

 

50In GAO-12-342SP, we stated that we expected to recommend that Congress consider 

requiring federal agencies to evaluate the effectiveness of their financial literacy efforts. 

Based on our subsequent review of the measures described in this section, we believe 

that such a recommendation is not necessary at this time.

Several Efforts to Better 

Assess Effectiveness Are 

Under Way
 

Page 36 GAO-12-588 Federal Financial Literacy Programs

identifying, enhancing, and sharing effective practices. As previously 

discussed, Treasury staff told us that the commission has begun to 

establish a clearinghouse of evidence-based research and evaluation 

studies, current financial topics and trends of interest to consumers, 

innovative approaches, and best practices. According to Treasury 

staff, the clearinghouse will be available through the MyMoney.gov 

website and will have links to research and data sets from federally 

supported financial literacy projects. The clearinghouse is being 

developed by a contractor but will be maintained by Treasury and is 

expected to be available around September 2012. In addition, the 

commission’s Research and Evaluation Working Group is charged 

with encouraging multidisciplinary research and sharing effective 

practices among federal agencies. In May 2012, the working group 

released a report on research questions and priorities that is intended 

to inform federal agencies, researchers, and others on the most 

important questions facing the field of financial literacy and to help 

make best use of limited research dollars.51

• CFPB’s Office of Financial Education. CFPB’s Office of Financial 

Education recently contracted with The Urban Institute for a financial 

education program evaluation project, which seeks to increase 

understanding of which interventions can improve financial decisionmaking skills in consumers. The effectiveness of selected financial 

education programs will be evaluated using a data collection tool and 

will be tested against a control group. Staff told us they intend to use 

the insights from the study to provide direction to practitioners about 

how to design and support effective financial capability and money 

confidence programs. A report is expected to be issued in the spring 

of 2014. In addition, CFPB’s Office of Financial Education has 

collaborated with its Office of Research to develop metrics for 

financial education, according to agency staff. 

• Office of Personnel Management. As part of its Retirement Readiness 

NOW program, the Office of Personnel Management is developing a 

rating system to determine which federal agencies are most effective 

in providing financial literacy and retirement education to the civilian 

labor force. According to agency staff, the ranking system is intended 

to help hold federal agencies accountable for their retirement 

 

51Financial Literacy and Education Commission, 2012 Research Priorities and Research 

Questions: Financial Literacy and Education Commission Research & Evaluation Working 

Group (Washington, D.C.: May 2012).
 

Page 37 GAO-12-588 Federal Financial Literacy Programs

education plans and strategies.

• Treasury’s Office of Financial Access, Financial Education, and 

Consumer Protection. This office has contracted out a research 

project assessing financial capability outcomes for both youth and 

adults, with results expected by the end of 2012. The office will test 

the hypothesis that increased financial capability—including financial 

information and education and access to simple, low-cost, transaction 

and savings products—will enhance the financial stability and wellbeing of low- and moderate-income individuals and households.

Federal financial literacy and housing counseling resources are spread 

across many federal agencies, the result of both legislation and programs 

evolving to address a variety of populations or topics. While we 

uncovered no duplication, some agencies or programs do have 

overlapping goals and activities, which raises the risk of inefficiency and 

underscores the importance of coordination. The creation of CFPB adds a 

new player to the mix. The agency will play a primary federal role in 

addressing financial literacy, yet some of its responsibilities overlap with 

those of other federal agencies. Effective collaboration among agencies 

entails defining and agreeing on respective roles and responsibilities and 

organizing collective efforts. CFPB appears to be making progress thus 

far in coordinating with federal agencies that have overlapping financial 

literacy responsibilities, but ensuring clear delineation of respective roles 

and responsibilities will also be essential to ensure efficiency. Moreover, 

the creation of CFPB may signal an opportunity for reconsidering how the 

federal government’s financial literacy efforts are organized. In particular, 

some consolidation of these efforts could help ensure the most efficient 

and effective use of federal financial literacy resources. While our 

February 2012 report stated that we expected to suggest that Congress 

consider options for such consolidation, the Financial Literacy and 

Education Commission is better positioned to identify possible options 

and this would be consistent with the commission’s statutory 

responsibility to propose means of eliminating overlap and duplication 

among federal financial literacy activities.

Overall, coordination among federal agencies with regard to financial 

literacy has improved in recent years, and the commission has played a 

critical role in this. The commission’s 2011 national strategy includes 

some elements that may be useful in guiding federal financial literacy 

efforts, but it could do more to identify the resources needed to implement 

the strategy and how federal resources might best be allocated among 

Conclusions 
 

Page 38 GAO-12-588 Federal Financial Literacy Programs

programs and agencies, characteristics we have found to be desirable for 

any national strategy. The commission faces the constraints of lacking its 

own budget or legal authority over member agencies to take any action, 

but, even so, it has the ability to provide recommendations or guidance to 

Congress or federal agencies. Without a clear discussion of resource 

needs and where resources should be targeted, policymakers lack 

information to help direct the strategy’s implementation and help ensure 

efficient use of funds.

We found that nearly all significant federal financial literacy programs that 

we reviewed had assessed or measured their activities in some manner 

and many had undertaken some method of seeking to measure

outcomes. While some measured the effect on participant behavior, often 

they assessed changes in participant knowledge or tracked output 

measures, such as the number of consumers reached. There is only 

limited knowledge about which federal financial literacy programs are 

most effective in achieving the key goal of improving consumer behavior, 

in large part because of the cost and difficulty of measuring these 

outcomes. Rigorous outcome-based evaluation is not necessarily 

practical or appropriate for every program, but its promotion and use, 

where feasible, is important to help Congress and federal agencies focus 

financial literacy resources on the most effective approaches and 

activities. In our February 2012 report, we stated that we expected to 

recommend that Congress consider requiring federal agencies to 

evaluate the effectiveness of their financial literacy efforts. However, we 

have found that the new initiatives that CFPB, Treasury, and the Financial 

Literacy and Education Commission have under way to assess 

effectiveness and identify best practices are positive steps in this 

direction. As a result, based on these ongoing efforts, we no longer 

believe that this recommendation is necessary at this time.

We recommend that as part of its ongoing coordination efforts, the 

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau take steps to help ensure clear 

delineation of the respective roles and responsibilities between itself and 

other federal agencies that have overlapping financial literacy 

responsibilities.

To help ensure effective and efficient use of federal financial literacy 

resources, we also recommend that the Secretary of the Treasury and the 

Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, in their capacity as 

Chair and Vice Chair of the Financial Literacy and Education 

Recommendations for 

Executive Action
 

Page 39 GAO-12-588 Federal Financial Literacy Programs

Commission, and in concert with other agency representatives of the 

commission: 

• identify for federal agencies and Congress options for consolidating 

federal financial literacy efforts into the activities and agencies that are 

best suited or most effective, and

• revise the commission’s national strategy to incorporate clear 

recommendations on the allocation of federal financial literacy 

resources across programs and agencies.

We provided a draft of this report to the Departments of Agriculture, 

Defense, Education, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban 

Development, Labor, and the Treasury, as well as to the Board of 

Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Consumer Financial 

Protection Bureau, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Federal Trade 

Commission, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Office of 

Personnel Management, Securities and Exchange Commission, and the 

Social Security Administration. We incorporated technical comments 

provided by these agencies as appropriate. In addition, CFPB, the 

Department of Health and Human Services, and Treasury provided 

written responses that are reproduced in appendices III, IV, and V, 

respectively.

In its response, CFPB neither agreed nor disagreed with the 

recommendations addressed to it, but it highlighted steps that its Offices 

of Financial Education, Servicemember Affairs, and Financial Protection 

for Older Americans are taking to delineate roles and responsibilities, 

improve coordination, and avoid duplication with other federal agencies.

CFPB also noted that it is committed to ensuring that its activities are 

informed by data and analytics. For example, it cited a project it has 

launched that uses rigorous quantitative methodologies to assess the 

effectiveness of several existing financial education programs and provide 

direction to practitioners about how to design and support effective 

programs on improving consumers’ financial capability and confidence 

about money. 

Treasury said that it agreed with our recommendations to the Financial 

Literacy and Education Commission related to identifying options for 

consolidation and making recommendations on the allocation of federal 

financial literacy resources. Treasury noted that the department has 

Agency Comments 

and Our Evaluation 
 

Page 40 GAO-12-588 Federal Financial Literacy Programs

already begun work with other members of the commission to define 

specific and measurable objectives that will help agencies assess the 

impact of their financial capability activities, which will provide a 

framework for any resource allocation recommendations the commission 

may have.

The Department of Health and Human Services said in its response that it 

disagreed that its National Education and Resource Center on Women 

and Retirement Planning overlapped with the Department of Labor’s 

Wi$eUp program because the two programs have differing 

methodologies, approaches, and target populations. We acknowledge the 

differences between the two programs in our report. However, the 

definition for overlap presented in this report is “multiple agencies or 

programs with similar goals and activities,” and we believe that this 

accurately applies to these two programs, both of which are financial 

literacy programs designed for adult women.

We are sending copies of this report to the appropriate congressional 

committees and to the heads of agencies that comprise the Financial 

Literacy and Education Commission. In addition, the report will be 

available at no charge on the GAO website at http://www.gao.gov. 

If you or your staff have any questions concerning this report, please 

contact me at (202) 512-8678 or cackleya@gao.gov. Contact points for 

our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found 

on the last page of this report. GAO staff who made major contributions 

are listed in appendix VI.

Alicia Puente Cackley

Director, Financial Markets and Community Investment
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

Methodology

Page 41 GAO-12-588 Federal Financial Literacy Programs

Our objectives were to address (1) what is known about the cost of 

federal financial literacy activities; (2) the extent and consequences of 

overlap and fragmentation among financial literacy activities; (3) what the 

federal government is doing to coordinate its financial literacy activities; 

and (4) what is known about the effectiveness of federal financial literacy 

activities. For the purposes of our analysis, we considered duplication to 

occur when two or more agencies or programs are engaged in the same 

activities and provide the same services to the same beneficiaries.

Overlap refers to when multiple agencies or programs have similar goals, 

engage in similar activities or strategies to achieve them, or target similar 

users. Fragmentation refers to circumstances in which more than one 

federal agency is involved in the same broad area of national need. Our 

report focuses largely on federal programs or activities that were relatively 

comprehensive in scope or scale and included financial literacy as a key 

component rather than a tangential goal. We generally excluded from our 

review programs or activities for which financial literacy was only a 

minimal component; that provided financial information related to the 

administration of the program itself rather than information aimed at 

increasing the beneficiaries’ financial literacy and comprehension more 

generally; that were purely internal to the agency; or that provided 

individualized financial services or advice rather than education. Using 

these criteria, we identified 16 significant financial literacy programs and 4 

significant housing counseling programs in operation in fiscal year 2010.

To address our first objective, we collected and reviewed the President’s 

Budget for fiscal years 2010, 2012, and 2013; budget justifications, as 

needed; congressional appropriations; and other sources that included 

cost information. For many federal agencies, financial literacy activities 

were not organized as separate budget line items or cost centers. In 

these cases, we asked agency staff to estimate the portion of program 

costs that could be attributed to financial literacy activities for fiscal year 

2010, which is the year for which we reported costs. This typically 

entailed estimating the cost of that portion of staff time devoted to 

financial literacy, as well as the cost of contracts, printing, or other 

resources related to financial literacy activities. Because the methods for 

estimating costs varied, these costs may not be fully comparable across 

agencies. To assess the reliability of these estimates, we interviewed 

agency staff about their cost estimation methodology, what their estimate 

included, and what assumptions they used in making the estimate.

Although costs may not be comparable across the agencies because 

agencies used differing methodologies, we determined that the data are 

reliable for the purposes of generally estimating federal dollars spent on 

financial literacy activities.

Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

Methodology 
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

Methodology

Page 42 GAO-12-588 Federal Financial Literacy Programs

To address our second and third objectives, we reviewed a 2009 report 

by the RAND Corporation that cataloged federal financial literacy efforts; 

reports from the President’s Advisory Council on Financial Capability; the 

national strategies and supporting documents of the Financial Literacy 

and Education Commission; and other reports as appropriate. We also 

reviewed the commission’s MyMoney.gov website and the websites of 

individual federal agencies related to financial literacy. In addition, we 

reviewed federal agency strategic plans; performance and accountability 

reports; budget justifications; memorandums of understanding between 

agencies or with nonfederal entities; and laws related to financial literacy 

activities or programs. Further, to assess the extent of overlap or 

duplication, we collected and analyzed characteristics of federal financial 

literacy programs and identified similarities and differences among 

programs’ purposes, subject matter content, targeted populations, and 

delivery methods. We assessed the commission’s 2011 National Strategy 

for Financial Literacy, in part, by benchmarking it against our prior work 

that identified the general characteristics of an effective national strategy.1

To determine what is known about the effectiveness of federal financial 

literacy activities, we collected evaluations, as well as any available 

information on the outputs or outcomes of these activities. As applicable, 

we reviewed output data such as information on numbers of program 

participants or consumers reached, website visits, and copies of 

publications or other materials distributed that were available through a 

variety of sources. For example, as available, we reviewed results of 

surveys of customer satisfaction, attitudes, or intention to change 

behavior, and tests that measured changes in program participants’ 

knowledge. In addition, we reviewed information on program effect that 

appeared in agencies’ strategic plans and performance and accountability 

reports. We also reviewed the 2009 RAND report, which included selfreported information from federal agencies on methods they have used to 

evaluate their financial literacy programs, and we updated this information 

Those recommended characteristics for national strategies had been 

developed by reviewing several sources of information, which included 

the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993; legislative and 

executive branch guidance for national strategies; general literature on 

strategic planning and performance; and our prior work on issues related 

to planning, integration, implementation, and other related subjects.

 

1

GAO-04-408T and GAO-07-100. 
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

Methodology

Page 43 GAO-12-588 Federal Financial Literacy Programs

as necessary through interviews with agency staff. In addition, we 

collected any available studies and evaluations that had been conducted 

on the outcomes of federal financial literacy activities, which included 

evaluations conducted by the agencies themselves or by external 

researchers. Each of the studies and evaluations cited in our report was 

reviewed for methodological reliability and determined to be sufficiently 

reliable for our purposes.

Finally, to address all four of our objectives, we interviewed staff who 

address financial literacy issues at 17 federal agencies that we had 

identified in prior work as potentially having significant involvement in 

financial literacy—the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve 

System; Consumer Financial Protection Bureau; Departments of 

Agriculture, Defense, Education, Health and Human Services, Housing 

and Urban Development, Labor, and Treasury; Federal Deposit Insurance 

Corporation; Federal Trade Commission; Internal Revenue Service; 

Office of the Comptroller of the Currency; Office of Personnel 

Management; Securities and Exchange Commission; Social Security 

Administration; and the U.S. Mint. We also interviewed staff at 

NeighborWorks America (a federally chartered nonprofit corporation) and 

representatives of the National Financial Education Network of State and 

Local Governments, the President’s Advisory Council on Financial 

Capability, and two nonprofit organizations, the American Savings 

Education Council and the National Endowment for Financial Education.

We conducted this performance audit from May 2011 to July 2012 in 

accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. 

Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain 

sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our 

findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that 

the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and 

conclusions based on our audit objectives.
Appendix II: Crosswalk between Federal 

Financial Literacy Programs Identified in the 

RAND Report and Programs Selected for 

Inclusion in this Report

Page 44 GAO-12-588 Federal Financial Literacy Programs

In 2009, the Departments of the Treasury and Education asked federal 

agencies to self-identify their financial literacy efforts, which resulted in a 

2009 report by the RAND Corporation that identified 56 federal financial 

literacy programs among 20 agencies.1 We reported these results in a 

2011 report, but our subsequent analysis of these 56 programs found a 

high degree of inconsistency in how different agencies defined financial 

literacy programs or efforts and whether they counted related efforts as 

one or multiple programs.2

 

1

Angela A. Hung, Kata Mihaly, and Joanne K. Yoong (RAND Corporation), “Federal 

Financial and Economic Literacy Education Programs, 2009” (Santa Monica, Calif.: 2010).

For the purposes of our current report, we 

developed criteria for identifying significant federal financial literacy and 

housing counseling activities and programs. We defined such activities or

programs as those that were relatively comprehensive in scope or scale 

and for which financial literacy or housing counseling was a key objective 

rather than a tangential goal. As appropriate, we defined a related set of 

activities (such as a series of webpages from one agency) as a single 

program. In addition, we excluded programs or activities (1) for which 

financial literacy was only a minimal component; (2) that provided 

financial information related to the administration of the program itself 

rather that information aimed at increasing the beneficiaries’ financial 

literacy and comprehension more generally; (3) that were purely internal 

to the agency, such as information provided to agency employees on their 

employment and retirement benefits; and (4) that represented 

individualized services or advice. We included as federal programs those 

of NeighborWorks America, a government-chartered, nonprofit 

corporation that receives federal funding for housing counseling, including 

through an annual appropriation from Congress. Finally, the RAND report 

was based on programs and activities in place in 2009, while our list 

reflects programs and activities in place during fiscal year 2010.

http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/technical_reports/2010/RAND_TR857.pdf. 

2

GAO-11-318SP. 

Appendix II: Crosswalk between Federal 

Financial Literacy Programs Identified in the 

RAND Report and Programs Selected for 

Inclusion in this Report
Appendix II: Crosswalk between Federal 

Financial Literacy Programs Identified in the 

RAND Report and Programs Selected for 

Inclusion in this Report

Page 45 GAO-12-588 Federal Financial Literacy Programs

Figure 1: Crosswalk between Federal Financial Literacy Programs Identified in the RAND Report and Programs Selected for 

Inclusion in This Report (GAO-12-588) 
Appendix II: Crosswalk between Federal 

Financial Literacy Programs Identified in the 

RAND Report and Programs Selected for 

Inclusion in this Report

Page 46 GAO-12-588 Federal Financial Literacy Programs
Appendix II: Crosswalk between Federal 

Financial Literacy Programs Identified in the 

RAND Report and Programs Selected for 

Inclusion in this Report

Page 47 GAO-12-588 Federal Financial Literacy Programs
Appendix III: Comments from the Consumer 

Financial Protection Bureau

Page 48 GAO-12-588 Federal Financial Literacy Programs

Appendix III: Comments from the Consumer 

Financial Protection Bureau
Appendix III: Comments from the Consumer 

Financial Protection Bureau

Page 49 GAO-12-588 Federal Financial Literacy Programs
Appendix III: Comments from the Consumer 

Financial Protection Bureau

Page 50 GAO-12-588 Federal Financial Literacy Programs
Appendix IV: Comments from the Department 

of Health and Human Services

Page 51 GAO-12-588 Federal Financial Literacy Programs

Appendix IV: Comments from the 

Department of Health and Human Services
Appendix IV: Comments from the Department 

of Health and Human Services

Page 52 GAO-12-588 Federal Financial Literacy Programs
Appendix IV: Comments from the Department 

of Health and Human Services

Page 53 GAO-12-588 Federal Financial Literacy Programs
Appendix V: Comments from the Department 

of the Treasury

Page 54 GAO-12-588 Federal Financial Literacy Programs

Appendix V: Comments from the Department 

of the Treasury
Appendix VI: GAO Contact and Staff 

Acknowledgments

Page 55 GAO-12-588 Federal Financial Literacy Programs

Alicia Puente Cackley, 202-512-8678 or cackleya@gao.gov

In addition to the contact named above, Jason Bromberg (Assistant 

Director), Kimberly Cutright, Mary Coyle, Jonathan Kucskar, Roberto 

Piñero, Rhonda Rose, Jennifer Schwartz, and Andrew Stavisky made key 

contributions to this report.

Appendix VI: GAO Contact and Staff 

Acknowledgments 

GAO Contact

Staff 

Acknowledgments 

(250607)
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