1

Financial Literacy and Education Commission (FLEC) Public Meeting

October 13, 2021

2:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. E.S.T. (webcast)

Minutes

Louisa Quittman, Director, Financial Security/Education, U.S. Department of the Treasury,

called the meeting to order at 2:00 p.m. She introduced Nellie Liang, Under Secretary for 

Domestic Finance, U.S. Department of the Treasury and designee for Chair of the FLEC, 

Secretary Janet Yellen. 

Under Secretary Liang began by underscoring the importance of financial education to help 

Americans navigate financial choices and improve financial well-being. She also praised the 

collaborative effort to provide COVID-19 relief. Next, Under Secretary Liang outlined the need 

for further collaboration as climate change becomes a more significant risk to the financial 

security of American families. Under Secretary Liang highlighted the disproportionate impact 

climate change will have on households that are already financial vulnerable, with lower incomes

and fewer assets, and the correlation between certain community features –including minority 

status, rural areas, and persons who are otherwise vulnerable to transitions in energy and 

manufacturing- and financial vulnerability. Under Secretary Liang closed her remarks by asking 

the members of FLEC and other federal agencies, as well as ‘on the ground’ experts, to identify a 

path forward to equip households and prepare resiliency support for communities at all levels to 

weather the impacts of climate change. Under Secretary Liang introduced Adair Morse, Deputy 

Assistant Secretary for Capital Access, to lead the Office of Consumer Policy in leading this 

effort. 

Ms. Quittman then introduced Dave Uejio, representing the Director, Consumer Financial 

Protection Bureau (CFPB), Vice Chair of the FLEC. Mr. Uejio emphasized the importance to go 

beyond traditional financial education and to address root causes of financial insecurity and 

inequity to improve resilience to climate change. Mr. Uejio pointed out the need to support 

consumers in areas where there is significant risk to equitable recovery of financial well-being,

including housing, student loans, and consumer reporting. In closing Mr. Uejio pledged the 

CFPB’s active engagement in meeting the challenges ahead as the FLEC works to ensure 

financial well-being for all.

Todd Harper, Chairman, National Credit Union Administration (NCUA), then stressed the need 

to help consumers through continued financial hardships as many of the programs to support 

consumers through the COVID-19 pandemic come to an end. Chairman Harper highlighted two 

NCUA events in the coming weeks: 1) a webinar on the impact of overdraft fees and closed 

accounts on consumers, and 2) a seminar on closing the homeownership gap. Chairman Harper 

also indicated that the NCUA already created an internal working group on household resilience 

to climate change and intends to coordinate on this issue across agencies. 

Ms. Quittman then introduced Richard Cordray, Chief Operating Officer, Federal Student Aid

(FSA), U.S. Department of Education. Mr. Cordray described the changes being made to 

streamline the FAFSA ® forms and Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program to make it 

easier for people to complete both processes and therefore make them more accessible. In 
2

January 2021, only about 6,500 people had received PSLF; with the changes announced almost 

40,000 people are expected to earn full PSLF by the end of 2021. Mr. Cordray also brought up 

the work FSA is doing to notify and assist borrowers whose loans have been suspended and will 

need to begin repayment on January 31, 2022. Mr. Cordray mentioned outreach to borrowers, 

schools, community groups, and other organizations to make sure that every American is aware 

of the return to repayment status and no borrower is penalized because they were unaware of the 

January 31 milestone.

Ms. Quittman then transitioned to the panel on Examples of Effective Financial Education and 

introduced the moderator Delicia Hand, Deputy Associate Director, Consumer Education and 

External Affairs, CFPB. Deputy Associate Director Hand spoke to “Five Principles of Effective 

Financial Education” developed by CFPB and used by the FLEC. 

Ms. Hand introduced panelists and asked Dubis Correal, Staff Director, Section of Financial 

Education CFPB, what the CFPB has learned about the financial well-being of Hispanics from 

her work and the role of financial education. Ms. Correal explained that research on financial 

well-being indicates that Hispanic adults have a financial well-being score that is two points 

lower than the national average. Further, the CFPB found fewer Hispanics in the highest ranges 

of financial well-being when compared to the general population. Additionally, CFPB found that 

there are no differences between the share of Hispanics and the general adult population with 

scores in the lowest levels of financial well-being. Ms. Correal pointed out that financial 

inclusion and well-being are positively correlated. She also explained that one of the strongest 

predictors of financial well-being and effective money management behaviors is confidence. 

Confidence may provide the sense of empowerment that people need to engage in positive 

money management behaviors and consequently lead to increased financial well-being.

Confidence may also be an outcome of financial well-being itself, as behaviors that yield 

positive results in people’s financial lives make people feel more confident in their ability to 

achieve their goals and make a meaningful change in their lives.

Ms. Hand then asked Alicia Lloro, Senior Economist, Federal Reserve Board of Governors about 

how people fared through the pandemic and if certain groups were more likely to face financial 

challenges. Dr. Lloro responded that the results of the Survey of Household Economic 

Decisionmaking (SHED) 2020 survey had three main take-aways – the share of people who said 

they were ‘worse off financially’ increased from 14% in 2019 to 24% in 2020, about 75% of 

people said they were doing ‘okay’ financially, and there were growing disparities between those 

with more and less education and between people who are Black and Hispanic versus White. Dr. 

Lloro cited that by the end of 2020 nearly 90% of adults with a bachelor’s degree said they were 

doing at least okay, compared to under half of adults with less than a high school degree. Further, 

nearly two thirds of Black and Hispanic adults said they were doing at least okay financially 

compared to 80% of White adults and 84% of Asian adults.

Ms. Hand then introduced Laura Lawrence, Senior Community Affairs Specialist for Financial 

Education, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), who presented the FDIC’s How 

Money Smart are You?. Ms. Lawrence explained that the animated financial education game 

helps adults and kids alike to build confidence in their financial decisions and support financial 

inclusion. It presents real-life situations like “what can a person do if they don’t have a drivers’ 
3

license but still want to open a bank account?” Ms. Lawrence explained that players learn as 

much from getting a question right as getting a question wrong and seeing an additional 

explanation of the scenario. 

Barry Wides, Deputy Comptroller, Community Affairs, Office of the Comptroller of the 

Currency, explained the value of convening experts to share ideas and pilot projects with 

community representatives through Project REACh (Round Table for Economic Access and 

Change). He described some examples including the Alterative Credit Assessment Utility 

Workstream that is looking to evaluate new models and data sources (such as checking account 

history) that further include the nearly 50 million Americans who lack traditional credit history. 

Deputy Comptroller Wides further explained that the Minority Depository Institution (MDI) 

Workstream has developed a pledge signed by 23 banks to encourage investment in MDIs, offer 

technical assistance, business opportunities, executive training, and other resources. 

Ms. Hand then asked Dr. Lloro about the financial impact climate change may have on people. 

Dr. Lloro explained that the SHED survey does not currently include questions on climate 

change, but the Federal Reserve Board is looking to add questions to the 2021 survey about how 

climate change may impact people’s well-being and expectations about how strongly they feel 

climate change may impact their future. Adair Morse, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Capital 

Access, U.S. Department of the Treasury, posed a question about how consumers adapt to a new 

climate environment and how we think about financial education and household balance sheets 

as people move across the country or move jobs. Ms. Lawrence shared that there are several 

scenarios in “How Money Smart Are You?” to help people think about how they may need to 

change behavior or make a big decision based on a shock. Ms. Correal also shared that putting 

aside structural barriers, it is more important for consumers to have skills to find reliable sources 

and convert information into action, as opposed to just knowing facts. 

Ms. Hand thanked the panelists and turned the agenda back over to Ms. Quittman, who 

introduced Deputy Assistant Secretary Morse to share the next steps on FLEC’s agenda to 

promote climate resilience for households and communities. Deputy Assistant Secretary Morse 

asked that FLEC members to participate in this analysis to understand what financial resilience 

to climate risk is, what the pre-existing settings are, and the other support mechanisms are 

available in communities facing transition. She also underscored that the FLEC, when

researching and formulating recommendations, should consider how discrimination impacts

community vulnerability and financial resilience. 

Deputy Assistant Secretary Morse then outlined five initial goals for the climate resilience 

agenda:

- Understand financial health of households and communities, including vulnerabilities to 

physical and transition risk.

- Consider the financial products landscape, and how it does or does not encourage financial 

resiliency.

- Understand local government, community, and financial architecture landscapes and other 

support mechanisms for basic needs and financial relief.

- Put together a geography, or mapping, of vulnerabilities and identify fragility.
4

- Identify what FLEC and others can do with policies, regulations, and local efforts and 

engagement to improve household financial resilience against the impact of climate change.

In closing, Deputy Assistant Secretary Morse reiterated that all FLEC members and agencies will 

need to come together with data and expertise to create this landscape analysis and formulate 

recommendations. There will be asks upcoming and the Office of Consumer Policy will reach 

out to schedule a brainstorm with members.

Ms. Quittman then emphasized that this is just the start of the conversation and opened the floor 

to questions. Ali Khawar of the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), highlighted that DOL is the 

primary regulator of private sector retirement plans and just released a proposal on how 

environmental, social, and other factors, including climate change, can be considered by 

fiduciaries or investors when approaching investments. 

Deputy Assistant Secretary Morse also mentioned that the FLEC climate resilience agenda is not 

intended to replace agencies’ separate climate agendas but to coordinate and develop a new 

product that includes all agencies’ data and expertise. Ms. Quittman further emphasized that 

many agencies may have multiple workstreams and offices that have different pieces of 

information to contribute to this project, including Treasury. Finally, Ms. Quittman stated that 

the FLEC would share further information on this topic at its first meeting in 2022.