Title

Debt Literacy and Social Work

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2013

Abstract

In the United States today, more than 56% of individuals are in debt (Foster,Meijer, Schuh, & Zabek, 2011). Debt literacy may be defined as the ability to correctly assess debt contracts andcompound interest when making financial decisions about loans, credit cards,interest rates and fees. Often, low-income individuals are vulnerable toexperiencing debt and social workers are uniquely placed to assist them. However, little is known about the debtliteracy levels of Master of Social Work (MSW) students who are about to becomesocial workers. This study attempts tofill this gap. Data were collected from 48MSW students, and analyzed using Chi-Square goodness-of-fit tests, Chi-Square testsof independence, and Fishers’ Exact Test where appropriate. Resultsindicate that social work studentsscored low on all debt literacy measures, but were statistically similar to thegeneral population and to service providers in the asset building field. Inaddition, students with higher self-assessed financial knowledge, or who comefrom households with higher incomes or network, tend to have higher debtliteracy levels. Implications for social work practice and education are discussed.

Original Publication Title

Journal of Financial Therapy

Volume

4

Issue

1

First Page

63

Last Page

82

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

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