A decade of tracking financial literacy in America. Findings from the 2026 TIAA Institute–GFLEC Personal Finance Index

The TIAA Institute and GFLEC mark 10 years of the Personal Finance Index with the 2026 edition, and the anniversary brings an urgent call to action: financial literacy among U.S. adults has declined to its lowest level in the survey's history, even as the personal finance landscape grows more complex.

Summary

The 2026 P-Fin Index marks a decade of tracking financial literacy among U.S. adults, and the milestone brings sobering news. Americans correctly answered only 47% of the index's 28 questions on average, a statistically significant decline from the prior year and the lowest result in the survey's 10-year history. The share of adults with very low financial literacy has grown steadily from 20% in 2017 to 25% in 2026, with the most pronounced gaps among Gen Z, who correctly answered only 38% of questions on average. Financial literacy has declined significantly in five of the eight functional knowledge areas covered by the index: consuming, borrowing, earning, insuring, and comprehending risk indicating that the decline is broad-based, not concentrated in a single topic. Gender gaps persist across nearly all functional areas, with women scoring 6 percentage points lower than men overall. To mark the survey's 10-year anniversary, the researchers developed and publicly released the P-Fin 8 Index, an abbreviated eight-question measure that closely tracks the full index and is now available for use by researchers and practitioners.

Key Insights

• Comprehending risk is the weakest knowledge area, and it's universal. Only 36% of risk-related questions were answered correctly in 2026, and this is the one functional area where performance is consistently low across all generations, showing little improvement with age.
• AI use in personal finance is growing but remains limited. While 19% of U.S. adults have used an AI tool such as ChatGPT or Gemini to get information about a personal finance topic, only 4% use AI regularly to help manage their finances. Use is highest among Gen Z (29%) and lowest among baby boomers (8%), and is strongly correlated with financial literacy levels.
• Retirement fluency is strikingly low, particularly on Medicare and long-term care. On average, adults correctly answered only about two of six retirement-related questions. Only 27% correctly identified how much Medicare covers in retirement, and just 28% knew the likelihood that a 65-year-old will eventually need long-term care.
• Greater retirement fluency is linked to stronger retirement readiness. Workers who answered four or more retirement fluency questions correctly are nearly twice as likely to save for retirement regularly and more than twice as likely to have calculated how much they need to save, compared to those who answered one or none correctly.
• Financial literacy gaps extend beyond gender and generation. Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher correctly answered 61% of index questions compared to 30% among those without a high school diploma, and those who have received financial education score 13 percentage points higher than those who have not.

Methodology

The 2026 P-Fin Index survey was conducted online between January 5 and January 22, 2026, among a sample of 3,602 U.S. adults ages 18 and older drawn from the Ipsos KnowledgePanel, a large-scale, probability-based online panel. The sample included 1,764 men and 1,838 women, as well as respondents across five generations: Gen Z (born 1997–2007), Gen Y/Millennials (1981–1996), Gen X (1965–1980), baby boomers (1946–1964), and the Silent Generation (1945 or earlier). Survey data were weighted to be nationally representative. The full P-Fin Index consists of 28 questions spanning eight functional areas of personal finance: earning, consuming, saving, investing, borrowing and managing debt, insuring, comprehending risk, and go-to information sources. Six additional questions assess retirement fluency. This is the tenth consecutive annual wave of the survey.