U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent And John Hope Bryant Collaborate For National Financial Literacy Month

The long-time colleagues met to discuss the nationwide initiative called Financial Literacy for All (FL4A), led by Bryant to harp on the importance of financial education.

John Hope Bryant, Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Operation HOPE, met with U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to mark April as National Financial Literacy Month and highlight their commitment to financial gain for all Americans.

The longtime colleagues met to discuss the narrative of a nationwide initiative called “Financial Literacy for All” (FL4A), led by Bryant, to emphasize the importance of financial education being built into the fabric of American life. Bryant and Bessent talked about ways to deepen the collaboration between public and private sectors to expand access to financial tools and knowledge. “For too long, financial literacy has been treated as a luxury,” Secretary Bessent said.

“It’s a necessity—just like reading and writing. John and I have been aligned on this for nearly a decade, and I’m proud to stand with him this April and beyond.”

In a 2024 CNBC op-ed, the financial literacy advocate highlighted the concept as being often overlooked throughout American history, specifically for African Americans, and when the target is the upcoming generation, calling it a “civil rights issue.”

While celebrating how President Abraham Lincoln signed the Freedman’s Bank into law in 1865 “to teach freed slaves about money,” Bryant said economic growth is more than just opening a slew of businesses or having products, but more so about active participation in the country’s economic development.

“The more people are involved in economic activities, such as earning, spending, saving, and investing, the more robust the economy becomes,” Bryant wrote.

In the same year, a survey revealed that seven in ten adults in the U.S. were “very or somewhat stressed” about their personal finances, heightening the fact that having a steady paycheck isn’t enough to prosper. The data was supported by a 2023 Employee Financial Wellness Survey by PwC, which found that 60% of full-time workers are stressed about their finances.

As Bryant and the Treasury Secretary push Financial Literacy Month goals of guaranteeing that “every individual, family, and business has the foundation to make informed financial decisions and build lasting security,” Bryant has given insight on how America will fail without the proper financial literacy elements being in place for past and future generations. “Think about this for a moment. We live in the largest, strongest, most robust economy on the planet, yet most of our children don’t even get one class in financial literacy. No one is telling them (and us) how this economy works,” the advocate wrote.

“We need the working class and the laddered-up middle class in America, and around the world, to grow. Without financial literacy, we cannot fully participate in our free enterprise system, and we cannot make informed financial decisions. We are left at the mercy of an economic system we do not fully understand — and worse yet for some of us, one that was not designed to support us.”