What Young People Don’t Know About Money Is Hurting Them

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There’s an old expression about young people: “Youth doesn’t understand age, but age understands youth.” In other words, old people remember what it was like to be young, but young people have no idea what it’s like to be old.

Nowhere is that more obvious than in personal finances.

I’ve written before about my anger and disappointment that the greatest financially successful country in human history doesn’t teach money management to its schoolchildren. When they become young adults and head into the working world, they’re woefully behind on the basics of responsible spending and clever saving.

Cases in point…

An unhealthy perspective

It’s no surprise that young people think they’ll live forever — and therefore underestimate the need for health insurance. Sadly, they also underestimate its expense.

The online health insurance exchange eHealth recently conducted a clever poll, asking more than 1,700 young Americans what they thought was “a ‘fair’ price for health insurance” per month. “Fifty-two percent of young adults age 18–24…