1 | Page

Financial Literacy and Education Commission Public Meeting Minutes

December 14, 2017

U.S. Department of the Treasury – Cash Room

9:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.

Louisa Quittman, Director, U.S. Department of the Treasury opened the meeting at 9:03 a.m. 

She introduced Treasurer Jovita Carranza. Treasurer Carranza welcomed members of the 

Commission, members of the public and acknowledged the presence of Advisor to the President 

Ivanka Trump. The Treasurer mentioned her travels and discussions with Ms. Trump regarding 

Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) enrollment, the importance of 

entrepreneurship and in particular, women-owned businesses, before introducing the Secretary of 

the Treasury, Steven Mnuchin.

Secretary Mnuchin stated that the purpose of the meeting was to discuss the plan for advancing 

the FLEC’s financial education activities. He noted that a stronger economy will provide 

opportunity for more people to save, get better jobs, and start businesses, and that high quality 

financial education can play a valuable role in helping Americans take advantage of these 

opportunities to meet their own goals. He referenced an Executive Order which included a 

principle “to empower Americans to make independent financial decisions and informed choices 

in the market place, save for retirement, and build individual wealth.” Secretary Mnuchin 

emphasized that FLEC can play an integral role in empowering Americans to make informed 

choices, and that the Treasurer is leading a Steering Committee to develop a plan that will help 

ensure FLEC is meeting its objectives and educating the public on financial matters. 

Secretary Mnuchin noted that a major priority for the FLEC will be to provide greater resources 

to service men and women and veterans, and to help service-members transition back to civilian 

life. He urged the FLEC to seize the opportunity to innovate and do things better, and strive to 

have measurable impacts.

He then welcomed the CFPB’s Acting Director, Mick Mulvaney,

Acting Director Mulvaney discussed the Administration’s priority of bringing financial 

prosperity to as many Americans as possible and the importance of financial education in helping 

people maintain financial prosperity and the role it plays in helping move people into selfsupport. He thanked the Commission for their work, and committed to working with the CFPB 

to help the FLEC achieve shared goal.
2 | Page

Treasurer Carranza then discussed the rationale for the FLEC Reform Initiative. She mentioned 

the work that she had done to learn about the FLEC and financial education, and that she has met 

with leadership of more than half of FLEC agencies. At the meetings she asked each agency 

head for their frank assessment of the FLEC’s overall effectiveness, its reach, how well it is 

serving our communities, and its strengths and weaknesses. It was agreed that the 

Administration should make the FLEC stronger and more responsive to American families.

She discussed setting collective goals and timelines, identifying and implementing best and 

effective practices, and working together to produce a positive impact on Americans’ financial 

capability and well-being. She also emphasized that FLEC members put a premium on 

measuring outcomes, rather than outputs, despite the challenge. 

She mentioned that she has met with private-sector financial education leaders and experts, local 

government officials, community-based organizations, philanthropic and civil rights 

organizations.

She reiterated that financial education is very important, and that stakeholders around the country 

look to this body to provide national leadership, expertise, networks, and tools and materials to 

move this field forward. 

She outlined the work over the next six months, which includes recommending populations of 

focus, review existing financial education activities for effectiveness and quality and 

recommending improvements in FLEC procedures.

She invited FLEC member agencies to actively commit to work in the reform initiative to 

achieve the shared goal of empowering more Americans to make successful financial decisions. 

The Treasurer then introduced Jason Brown, Director of Microeconomic Policy at Treasury, to 

provide insights on current and notable trends in household economic security. In particular, she 

asked that he discuss financial security trends among women in particular, including 

entrepreneurs and older women.

Dr. Brown began by acknowledging that there has been considerable recovery from the 

recession, noting reductions in debt. Median household net worth is still not completely 

recovered, with significant differences in age groups, with much of the wealth accruing to the 

oldest households. He pointed out that student loan balances have quadrupled in the past 15 

years, and students are bearing more of the cost of higher education. Higher education is still a 

good investment, but there are variations in outcomes for students. Older Americans have more 

wealth, mostly concentrated in housing. Single, including widowed households are more likely 

to be less wealthy, with disability being a negative factor. Older women are twice as likely to be 

in poverty as older men. He concluded with emphasizing the importance of financial education 

in helping people accumulate and preserve wealth. 

Director Quittman asked whether these trends are likely to continue, and what this would mean 

for financial education efforts. Dr. Brown said that they are likely to continue, citing the student 
3 | Page

loan issue and that people are living longer and long-term care issues are still present. The 

Treasurer recognized that homeownership is important to wealth accumulation that can be used 

to finance education, entrepreneurship and long-term care. Ja’Ron Smith asked whether Dr. 

Brown had done any research on minorities and financial education, and Dr. Brown deferred to 

financial education experts.

Director Quittman asked the members of the Steering Committee had any comments. 

Fred Drummond, DOD, remarked that we need to have the right investments in financial 

education and have successful outcomes transitioning to civilian service. He thought that there 

was value in exchanging best practices in financial education. He also mentioned the importance 

of investing early for retirement and the portability of these accounts. 

Allen Gutierrez, SBA emphasized that in order to run a successful business you need to 

understand your personal finances as well. The Treasurer mentioned the role that the SBA has in 

helping businesses be prepared financially for disaster. 

Bob Patterson, SSA mentioned SSA’s long history in better helping the public understand 

retirement security and their ongoing public outreach in helping in this effort. 

Mark Pearce, FDIC, discussed the collaboration with other FLEC agency members to reach 

diverse populations, including youth, older adults and people with disabilities. Specifically, he 

mentioned the resources developed to help teachers and parents about financial matters. He also 

pointed out that about 20% of people who are unbanked in the country are people with 

disabilities, and that they are seeking ways to tailor their information to better serve this 

population. He noted the difficulty of measuring impact but emphasized the importance of 

demonstrating that our work makes a difference and stays current, including the way that the 

information is delivered. 

Dr. Eric Belsky, FRB expressed interest in making sure that we understand what’s effective in 

helping people make good financial decisions. He discussed insuring reaching people at times 

when they need to make a financial decision, such as receiving their first paycheck, financing an 

education or filing taxes. The Federal Reserve considers savings and financial inclusion to be 

critical. Dr. Belsky discussed the importance of the research function in informing financial 

education work about consumer household financial conditions and perceptions. He pointed out 

his enthusiasm for driving outcomes, not just outputs, in financial literacy programs and the 

individualism of making financial decisions.

Director Quittman opened the meeting to discussion among the FLEC members. Svetlana Gans 

responded to discuss the FTC’s consumer education resources, including MilitaryConsumer.gov, 

IdentityTheft.gov, and business cybersecurity protection. Gail Hillebrand, CFPB, discussed the 

importance of identifying what works and what doesn’t work. She expressed that it’s important 

to support and work through community channels, such as libraries, recruiters, and employers in 

order to help people build skills over the life cycle. She also encouraged the FLEC to think 

about how to measure how we build a strong community infrastructure to continue to deliver 

these services. She mentioned their network of 1600 libraries that receive training and 
4 | Page

information, as well as “Your Money, Your Goals,” which works with social service providers to 

include financial education in their services. She also discussed tax time savings and the role 

that research plays in helping meet the financial needs of the public. Barry Wides, OCC talked 

about the “Financial Literacy Update”, a bi-monthly resource that informs banks of local 

opportunities to participate in local initiatives to improve financial capability. The Treasurer 

discussed the meaningful role that banks can play in providing financial capability. Director 

Quittman followed up with encouraging the group to systematically improve how the FLEC 

works with the private sector. Sarah Gerecke, HUD discussed HUD’s homebuyer counseling 

network and an ongoing study on the effectiveness of homebuyer counseling. Preliminary 

findings are that counseling can help people recovering from disaster make good decisions, 

access resources and avoid fraud.

Director Quittman then provided highlights from 2017 that included DOD’s new Blended 

Retirement System and the FLECs work in helping military families make good financial 

decisions and the Military Financial Readiness Roundtable, which brought some outside experts 

on financial health to inform the military financial readiness community.

She noted that several FLEC members mentioned the importance of savings. Referring to earlier 

studies, it’s known that many people are lacking emergency savings and also that it is important 

for people to start saving early, particularly for youth. We know more about the messaging and 

moments that make a difference in people’s savings.

In May, the FLEC hosted the U.S. release of the 2015 Programme for International Student 

Assessment (PISA) financial literacy findings. Both the U.S. Department of Education and the 

OECD presented data which showed that more than one-fifth of U.S .15 year-olds do not have 

the basic level of financial skills and knowledge they need as measured by this rigorous 

assessment. There is a huge gap in student performance based on socio-economic status. She 

noted that there are positive lessons in helping students gain knowledge, including strategies to 

work with parents and increasing hands-on learning.

She mentioned the FLEC’s response to recent disasters. The FLEC recently added “Rebuilding 

Your Finances Following a Disaster” landing page which provides information on managing 

your finances after disaster and includes several FLEC member resources on topics such as 

working with creditors and avoiding fraud. FLEC agencies are also collaborating in other ways 

to meet disaster response, recovery and prevention needs.

Looking to the year ahead, Quittman also emphasized the role that research plays in helping to 

effectively include financial education in other programs and services and how technology-based 

approaches can be effective at helping people make decisions and take action. The FLEC 

encourages the sharing of this data and research.

She thanked the FLEC member agencies for their work in 2017 and that the annual report is for 

the FLEC is set to be released in early 2018.

She then asked for brief announcements from the FLEC members.
5 | Page

Gail Hillebrand, CFPB, mentioned that copies of the CFPB’s Annual Report and the Financial 

Well-being Survey are available for the public, and that all the tools and resources are available 

for use by anyone.

Erica Richardson, CFTC announced the launch of CFTC.gov/bitcoin, a collection of educational 

materials and information on bitcoin and other virtual currencies.

Director Quittman pointed out that this is a reminder for the FLEC to be responsive to current 

needs. She noted that the next public meeting is expected in the spring, and the Steering 

Committee is expected to meet in January.

The Treasurer closed out the meeting by reiterating the need to focus in on change as a window 

of opportunity to improve the FLEC and optimize the collaborative group and its expertise and 

experience. She noted how the Steering Committee was selected based on their reach and 

practices that benefit the work of the whole. The group will focus on identifying best practices 

and specific target populations that could benefit from increased efforts, such as military 

members. She noted that the process is designed to be transparent, and will interact with the full 

FLEC to gain input. . She applauded the FLEC for the progress and activities to date. She 

thanked the meeting participants, including those joining via webcast and thanked special guest 

Ivanka Trump for her participation and attention during the meeting. 

The meeting concluded at 10:33 a.m.
6 | Page

Financial Literacy and Education Commission Representatives

Department of Treasury, Chair Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin

Treasurer Jovita Carranza

Louisa Quittman

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Vice Chair Mick Mulvaney

Gail Hillebrand

Commodity Futures Trading Commission Erica Elliott Richardson

Department of Agriculture Toija Riggins

Department of Defense Fred Drummond

Department of Education Jason Botel

Department of Health and Human Services Aisha Gurley

Department of Housing and Urban Development Sarah Gerecke

Department of the Interior Archie Barnes

Department of Labor Jeanne Wilson

Department of Veterans Affairs James Manker

Federal Reserve Board Dr. Eric Belsky

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Mark Pearce

Federal Trade Commission Svetlana Gans

General Services Administration Marietta Jelks

National Credit Union Administration Matthew J. Biliouris

Office of the Comptroller of the Currency Barry Wides

Office of Personnel Management Karen McManus

Securities and Exchange Commission Lori Schock

Small Business Administration Allen Gutierrez

Social Security Administration Robert “Bob” Patterson

White House Domestic Policy Council Ja’Ron Smith

Additional Speakers

• Jason Brown, Director, Microeconomics Policy, U.S. Department of the Treasury