{"id":881245,"date":"2026-09-02T23:16:19","date_gmt":"2026-09-02T23:16:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/881245\/"},"modified":"2026-09-02T23:16:19","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T23:16:19","slug":"bessent-pitches-financial-literacy-to-worlds-largest-economies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/881245\/","title":{"rendered":"Bessent pitches financial literacy to world’s largest economies"},"content":{"rendered":"

ASHEVILLE, N.C. (AP) \u2014 Driven in part by his own experience with poverty as a child, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is pitching a financial literacy campaign<\/a> to leaders of the world\u2019s largest economies and suggesting an investment account program begun under President Donald Trump<\/a> as a model for it. <\/p>\n

As he hosted finance ministers from rich and developing nations in the G20, Bessent on Tuesday announced U.S. sponsorship for a competition called the \u201cFinancial Literacy Solutions Sprint.\u201d<\/p>\n

The competition is intended to discover and showcase \u201cinnovative technology- and data-enabled solutions\u201d developed across the Group of 20<\/a> countries to strengthen financial literacy.<\/p>\n

Four finalists will be pared to one or two winning teams and will be recognized during the annual meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in October in Bangkok. <\/p>\n

Bessent points to the creation of Trump Accounts<\/a>, a program that provides $1,000 in investment accounts to babies born during Trump\u2019s second term, as a model other nations should follow. Treasury says roughly 7 million children are enrolled and 86% of participants are from families earning less than $200,000 per year.<\/p>\n

The secretary often talks about his humble beginnings<\/a> in rural South Carolina, where he got his first jobs at age 9 as a busboy at a cafeteria and setting up chairs and umbrellas on the beach. His father, a real estate developer, had lost generations of Bessent family wealth by overleveraging his obligations.<\/p>\n

One of Bessent\u2019s first moves as Treasury secretary was to launch Financial Literacy Month to teach people the basics of building a workable budget, saving for the future and protecting themselves from scammers and fraudsters.<\/p>\n

Critics of his efforts argue that the problem is less about people not knowing how to invest and more about them not having enough spare income to do so.<\/p>\n

About 7 in 10 U.S. adults say the country\u2019s economy is \u201cpoor,\u201d according to July polling from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research<\/a>. The finding underscores Americans\u2019 continued unhappiness with the cost of living, which is being compounded by high gas prices due to the war in Iran.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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\u201cAmericans can\u2019t educate themselves out of their current financial crises, and it\u2019s hypocritical for the Treasury Secretary to place the blame on ordinary Americans\u2019 financial decisions when their struggles are the direct result of decisions that Scott Bessent himself has made,\u201d said Julie Morgan, CEO of the Century Foundation, a left-leaning think tank focused on public policy research. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ASHEVILLE, N.C. (AP) \u2014 Driven in part by his own experience with poverty as a child, Treasury Secretary…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":881246,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[59406,45,49,48,13425,1376,46,73084,2841,5897,305749,22864,22865,131,714,12400,8615],"class_list":["post-881245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-asheville","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-domestic-news","tag-donald-trump","tag-economy","tag-financial-wellness","tag-general-news","tag-iran","tag-julie-morgan","tag-nc-state-wire","tag-north-carolina","tag-personal-finance","tag-politics","tag-scott-bessent","tag-washington-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/881245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=881245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/881245\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/881246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=881245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=881245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=881245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}