Financial Literacy For This Generation - Visualizing The Future Of Wealth In America

Source: Chris Curtis

Financial literacy takes many forms. News headlines and candidate campaigns highlight the disparities of wealth between the "one percent" and the everyday Americans. In schools, traditional financial literacy classes teach older students about balancing their checkbooks and paying off their credit cards. These are noble messages, yet fundamental shifts are changing how young people spend and consume, from Bitcoin to online bill-pay.

Furthermore, financial literacy encompasses a much broader net of core fiscal issues, including stock investing, inflationary tendencies, surplus and deficit budgeting, bond and mutual fund accounts, and renting versus home ownership. Our youngest students need to be a part of this conversation, rather than waiting until high school or college, when it may be too late.

Source: Chris Curtis

Luckily, a host of digital resources exist to welcome all learners into the money discussion. A terrific explainer video from Chris Curtis, entitled "Wealth In America," tracks how life-long earnings vary for each generation. Moving from the proven past to the predicted future, this animated infographic addresses how collective wealth matters in determining future savings. The gauzy collage of photographs and stamps unites with compelling narration to inform today's students about their relative futures. This motion graphic of statistics and charts neatly blends STEM skills with the social sciences to prove that financial literacy is more than a single silo of curriculum.

Source: Chris Curtis

The video's creator, Chris Curtis, created this clip as part of his work with Deloitte University Press. As a director at Not To Scale in London, he has designed numerous short films that synthesize illustration with live action. He blogs at I'm Your Boss and shares visual and financial literacy ideas on Twitter via @imyourboss.

Source: Chris Curtis

As a whole, this video projects the dollar value of future household assets. It nods to the outsized influence of the Baby Boomers, and it highlights the fallout from the "Great Recession" of 2007. In particular, it teaches young people about earnings versus debt. The Millennials are sharers, non-idealogues, and social entrepreneurs. The salaries of these price-conscious, tech-nimble workers may rise steadily, yet their per capita wealth will lag prior generations. They will, however, force changes in the traditional marketplace that will realign how workers accumulate wealth.

Wealth in America from Chris Curtis on Vimeo.

For more ideas about teaching financial literacy, check out:

• Visualizing Wealth In America
• Resource Roundup: Finance And Economic Motion Graphics
• Financial Education: Where Literacy And STEM Meet
• Don't Save It For Later - Financial Literacy Through Infographics & Animations