This week, we're speaking with joint #AFCPE2022 keynote speakers from the FINRA foundation: Ritta McLaughlin, the Director of Investor Education Community Outreach & Olivia Valdes, Senior Research Analyst. In this episode, we dive into trends across multiple areas of the market such as the idea of intergenerational wealth and its contribution to massive wealth gaps, and the importance of truly understanding the nuances of the populations we study.
Tune in for more impactful, data-driven takeaways from the FINRA National Financial Capability study and listen to the full presentation at #AFCPE2022--register to attend virtually today!
Show Notes:
2:20 Into the FINRA National Financial Capability Study
14:53 Market participation across race and ethnicity
18:16 Gender investing trends
19:53 How can we impact this challenge and become a more inclusive market?
31:18 Fun facts!
34:56 Ritta and Olivia's final 2 cents
Show Note Links:
Want to get involved with AFCPE®?
Here are a few places to start: Become a Member, Sign up for an Essentials Course, or Get AFC Certified today!
Want to support the podcast? We love partnering with organizations that share our mission and values. Download our media kit.
This week, we're speaking with joint #AFCPE2022 keynote speakers from the FINRA foundation: Ritta McLaughlin, the Director of Investor Education Community Outreach & Olivia Valdes, Senior Research Analyst. In this episode, we dive into trends across multiple areas of the market such as the idea of intergenerational wealth and its contribution to massive wealth gaps, and the importance of truly understanding the nuances of the populations we study.
Tune in for more impactful, data-driven takeaways from the FINRA National Financial Capability study and listen to the full presentation at #AFCPE2022--register to attend virtually today!
Show Notes:
2:20 Into the FINRA National Financial Capability Study
14:53 Market participation across race and ethnicity
18:16 Gender investing trends
19:53 How can we impact this challenge and become a more inclusive market?
31:18 Fun facts!
34:56 Ritta and Olivia's final 2 cents
Show Note Links:
Want to get involved with AFCPE®?
Here are a few places to start: Become a Member, Sign up for an Essentials Course, or Get AFC Certified today!
Want to support the podcast? We love partnering with organizations that share our mission and values. Download our media kit.
Welcome to Real Money Real Experts, a podcast where leading financial counseling and coaching experts share their stories, their challenges, and their advice for helping people manage money in the real world. I'm your host, Rachel Daon, Executive Director of the Association for Financial Counseling and Planning Education for A F C P
Speaker 2:E. And I'm your co-host, Dr. Mary Bell Carlson, an accredited financial counselor, or afc, and the President of Financial Behavior Keynote Group. Every episode we're taking a deep dive in the topics that personal finance professionals care about, helping clients, building community, and your professional growth. Olivia, Im Valdez is a senior research analyst for the FINRA Investor Education Foundation. In her role, she leads and conducts research projects to better understand and advance the financial wellbeing of adults in the United States. Her research also focuses on protecting consumers against financial fraud and exploitation, and improving financial disclosure statements. Dr. Valdez obtained her BA from the University of South Florida and her PhD in experimental psychology from Florida Atlantic University. Ridin McLaughlin is the Director of Investor Education Community outreach at the FINRA Investor Education Foundation, where she leads the foundation's efforts to advance financial inclusion. She's an expert on various personal finance and investor education topics and informs audiences about saving and investing. She cultivates and manages strategic partnerships with organizations to provide financial capability programming and underserved communities. Rita collaborates with a foundation team of researchers on studies to advance the understanding of diverse community's financial capabilities, circumstances, and wellbeing. She's also the staff liaison to the FINRA Board of Directors Industry Diversity Advisory Council and Day-to-day project lead for the FINRA's C Social Responsibility Working Group. This November, Rita and Olivia will join us at the 2022 A F C P E Symposium where they will speak to the evolution of market participation among people of color, address key barriers, and most importantly, share opportunities for impactful change. Thank
Speaker 3:You for having us today,
Speaker 1:Rita. And Olivia, before we get started and talking a little bit more about your keynote, I'd love to take it back to the National Financial Capability Study, which is a study that thinner foundation releases, I believe, every three years. Can you tell us more about that study and why it's so important?
Speaker 3:Sure. And this is Rita. I will jump in and talk a little bit. For those of you who may not be familiar with the Center Investor Education Foundation, it was established in 2003 to empower underserved Americans in the United States with knowledge, skills, and tools and needed to make silent financial decisions throughout the course of their lives. And we accomplished our mission through educational programs and research that help consumers achieve their financial goals and protect them in this complex and dynamic financial world. One of the major endeavors of the Fenra Foundation is the National Financial Capability Study, and often you'll hear it described as the nfcs, It's the large scale nationwide survey that gauges the financial capabilities of adults all across the United States. And we first commissioned the study in 2009, and it now spans five separate waves in 2000 9, 12, 15, and 18. And of course, most recently in 2021, the survey asks people their financial behaviors, their attitudes, and their financial knowledge, and also includes demographic questions like age and gender and race and ethnicity. The data reflects how US adults are faring financially, and this information helps us identify issues that can be used by wide range of stakeholders to create data informed solutions. And given this robust data set, the nfcs provides, it allows us to better understand and to serve the many different groups that make up the population in the United States. And importantly, the NFCS data also does a state by state analysis, which helps state policy makers and others make informed decisions related to the various populations and the demographics that are associated. That's a bit about what the nfcs is and does, and we're gonna spend a little bit more time, you know, talking about what's in the dataset and some of those key findings. Please
Speaker 4:Tell us more. In 2021, there's some encouraging trends that we see. So when we look at the US adult population and the aggregate, there seems to be from 20,009 to 2021 that more adults are satisfied financially. We're seeing fewer people have trouble, um, paying expenses and more have actually set aside emergency savings today than they did back in 2009. So overall in the aggregate, there's some pretty encouraging news, but that's not really the full picture. And we see that some groups are struggling. So for instance, um, those earning lower incomes, we see that they report higher levels of financial anxiety, um, than their counterparts earning higher wages. So, um, when we look at these two populations, we see that, um, adults, 66% of those who earn wages under$25,000 report financial anxiety. And that's compared to 45% of those that earn 75 k and above people earning lower incomes. They also report thinking about their finances more. So they have a lot more worry than these higher income populations. And it's not just, you know, these different subpopulations that we see different struggles, but even in the aggregate amid this increased financial capability, we still see some declines in financial knowledge. And so we measure financial knowledge with a financial knowledge quiz that's pretty well established in the research fields. It's called the the big five. And we've been collecting this data since 2009, and what we see is this very steady decline in financial knowledge from 2009 to 2021. But those findings are a little bit nuanced. This is a multiple choice quiz essentially. So people have the option to bubble in the correct answer or the answer they think is correct, or they can say, don't know. And what we've been seeing is that more and more people are saying they don't know the correct response. So about 70% of the decrease that we see in financial knowledge is a result of people saying they don't know the correct answer to the underlying questions. And so we don't know why this is the case, but there is one hypothesis that people may be accurately gauging the complexity of the financial world and things, products, services, they get more and more complex and maybe people they see that and they're accurately saying that they don't know. So in some ways, you know, we're seeing these declines in financial knowledge, but there seem to be some opportunities for, um, education because people are saying that they don't know the correct answers.
Speaker 1:That's really interesting and it, it makes you wonder is it a decrease in financial confidence or sort of an awareness, like you said, that the financial landscape is becoming more complex and so, you know, having someone to reach out to our financial education is needed now more than ever. Yeah,
Speaker 4:And that's a really interesting idea that maybe this is, you know, confidence or maybe this is awareness and there's just so much more that can be done in this space and so much more than we can learn and then can inform financial education. So yeah, anybody listening, uh, if you have any ideas mm-hmm.<affirmative>. So there's, you know, more research to be done here. But another really interesting, uh, area that we explored in 2021 was this idea of intergenerational wealth. So as, as Rita was mentioning earlier, one of you know, the key missions for the foundation and for our research pursuits is to help understand and better the, you know, financial wellbeing of underserved populations. And intergenerational wealth is one big contributor to these massive wealth gaps that we see. And so we wanted to really explore intergenerational wealth gaps more carefully. And so in 2021, we introduced some questions to get at this notion. And so when we talk about an intergenerational wealth ga, these are, this is wealth that's transferred down, you know, from generation to generation and it can be, you know, in the form of gifts or inheritance. And so when we asked about inheritance, so we asked, um, respondents, did you receive or expect to receive an inheritance that is at least$10,000? About a quarter of US adults, um, responded that they did. And it's a bit interesting when we divide that by race and ethnicity because there you see big gaps. We find that white adults are 67% more likely to receive an inheritance than either black or Hispanic respondents. And intergenerational wealth manifests in a lot of different ways. And one important way is in the owning of a taxable investment account. So when we talk about a taxable investment account, it's really a brokerage account outside of retirement. So this that's not an IRA or a 401k. And we see stark differences in taxable account ownership between those people who have and do not have or expect to receive, uh, an inheritance. So while about 57% of adults who will or have already received an inheritance own taxable investments, only 27% of those without an inheritance report owning a taxable investment account, and you know, taxable investments are a very important vehicle to, um, building wealth and to achieving financial wellbeing. So this is an area that we are really interested in and really understanding what those gaps are and what are ways that we can more effectively close them.
Speaker 3:And to build on that, Olivia, one of the things I think it's important for the audience to know that when we are looking at the NFCS data, you know, one of the things that we are looking for, um, is to really better understand several of the wealth disparities that Olivia mentioned and how they're affecting various communities, be the communities of color and other underserved communities. You know, importantly there is, is I think many of listeners know there have been wide and pervasive racial and ethnic wealth gaps that have existed in the US for quite some time. And when we look at the, uh, 2019 data, the medium net worth of the typical white household was nearly eight times that of the typical black household. And that's$188,000 versus$24,000. And that's five times that of the typical Hispanic or Latino household, which was$36,000. And these is disparities, um, as we've uncovered in the research, um, can affect the uni, the actually affect the economy as a whole and are clearly detrimental to various populations in families and communities. And also severely limit economic growth in, uh, economic prospects of, you know, all, uh, all US adults. You know why some of this suggests that, you know, the inequality is dampening consumption and investment and may cost the US economy between 1000000000001.5 trillion. Um, and that's estimated between 2019 and 2028, and that's about between four and 6% of the projected 2028 GDP in the country. Closing these gaps, in essence will involve more than just providing financial education and financial tools in, in part to really encourage, you know, full market participation and having individuals experience financial wellbeing across all different types of products and services and supporting individuals knowing how to navigate financial services beyond just saving for their financial needs and investing in their financial goals. I think one of the things in addition that when we talk about sort of what's causing many of these gaps and several of, of the factors and the 2021 NFCS data, we examine that there were several looked at several factors that are contributing to these disparities, particularly as it relates to taxable account ownership. Statistically, we controlled for factors beyond race and ethnicity, um, to see what some of the other barriers that might be precluding individuals from owning taxable investments or having taxable accounts. And in doing so, we, there were six factors that were key that we found for owning a taxable investment account. The first was income, the second, um, a college degree that's having a four year degree financial knowledge, emergency savings. And that means having a rainy day fund owning a home home ownership, and a high tolerance for taking financial risks. And that really means preferring to take an above average financial risk. We're more likely to own a taxable investment account. And as it relates to sort of the emergency savings, I do wanna point out that one of the factors that we, in that emergency savings was that having a rainy day fund was substantially more important than earning an income above$50,000. But notably, even after controlling for these factors, there was a gender gap persistent, particularly with women of color. And black and Hispanic women were less likely to own taxable investments accounts than their male counterparts.
Speaker 2:So what does market participation across race and ethnicity look like today? And traditionally,
Speaker 4:Traditionally we see that people of color participate in the capital market at lower rates, but we are seeing that those gaps seem to be closing. So we're seeing these encouraging trends across the NFCS data. In our most recent data, we find that about 29% of black adults and 30% of Hispanic adults own a taxable investment account, and that's compared to 36% of white adults. So clearly there's still some gaps there. Black and Hispanic adults are about 17% less likely to own a taxable investment than their white counterparts. But there is a very clear improvement over the years that we've collected that data. When we compare to 2012, which was when we have, um, clean data from, uh, the taxable investment account, we see that the likelihood of owning a taxable investment has increased by 32% for black adults and 25% for Hispanic adults. So that is to say that from 2012 to 2021, black adults were 32% more likely to own a, a taxable investment account that than you were back then. And Hispanic adults were 25% more likely to do so in that, you know, pretty short, um, span of time. And so that begs the question of why, why are we seeing these um, improvements? And one possibility is the democratization of investing. So we are seeing that people have the ability to participate in the market with less money. We have, um, zero commission trading available, people can purchase, uh, fractional chairs. So we're seeing that people are able to join the market with lower amounts of money, essentially there's also these new technological advances. So we're seeing that FinTech applications allow you to invest from the comfort of your home through your mobile phone, through your desktop, and all of these different factors, maybe increasing the ability to invest for a lot of these populations who have not traditionally done so. And uh, in a separate study that we did with NORC at the University of Chicago, we actually looked at, uh, new investors who had joined the market in um, 2020 and we saw that this is the case. So new investors are more racially and ethnically diverse than more traditional ones. And they have, uh, lower incomes, their accounts have lower balances. We're seeing more and more, uh, representation of different groups in the, um, investing world. This is great because we are seeing a democratization of, um, investing, but there are still, you know, some challenges while we see these new populations joining the market. We're also seeing some, uh, trends in terms of, um, investing knowledge that, you know, need to be addressed.
Speaker 1:I'm curious, you mentioned you're seeing more investing across various demographics. Have you also looked at gender investing and what you kind of alluded to at the end? You know, the types of investments just because people are getting more involved in the market, you know, just understanding some of the risks and the education behind doing it effectively.
Speaker 4:One of the things that we were interested in looking at was whether this gender gap that we know that exists with investing has been closing, but unfortunately we didn't see that. So we're still seeing an overrepresentation of male investors, you know, in comparison to female investors. And in some ways, like demographically the investors look different, but in other ways we're seeing a lot of the same too. So in the types of investments that they're interested in, in general, both newer investor and traditional investors seem to be gravitating toward purchasing and selling stocks, mutual funds. It doesn't really differ too much, but with the caveat that this was data collected in 2020, there's been a lot of changes from there and a lot of activity that's occurred. And so we're actually revisiting these questions in, uh, 2022 and looking at new investors now. So I mean, it's still an open question and something interesting that we're still, you know, thinking about. But um, in terms of investing knowledge, we do see that new investors tend to have lower levels of investing knowledge compared to more traditional investors. So definitely some opportunities for education there.
Speaker 2:You've given us a lot to think about in terms of factors and challenges and, and quite honestly statistics. So help us understand a little bit more about how our population, which is traditionally researchers and practitioners, how can we impact this challenge and become a more inclusive market?
Speaker 4:There's a lot to dig into here. There's a lot of different implications for this data. One of the things that we see and that Rita talked about is that, you know, financial and social resources, they limit the ability to invest. So we really need equal opportunity for economic growth and fair lending practices because without financial security participating in the capital markets is very challenging. And so that's one area that, you know, all of us, um, need to be aware of. There's also this idea of access to affordable inclusive financial education. So we know that financial education improves financial knowledge, it boosts confidence when making financial decisions. And I mean, even just recently, um, there was a large scale study that looked at the effectiveness of financial education across 76, uh, different experiments. And this was really like the gold standard of, um, research, really comprehensive research. And there we found that on average financial education improves not just financial knowledge, but it has an effect on different financial behaviors like those related to budgeting, saving and credit. Financial education is such an effective tool and it's one area that we can really, really improve on. And even past nfcs findings, they show that people who report receiving 10 hours of more or of financial education, they're more likely to spend less on their incomes compared to those who receive fewer hours of education. And it's not just about the quantity of education, but the quality. So we see that high quality education is much more effective than lower quality education. So definitely education is one area that we can really focus on. Comprehensive and high quality education can, and inclusive market access can really make a difference to address, you know, the disparities that we've been talking about today, for example, um, one of the things that Rita mentioned is emergency savings. So we see that having emergency savings, so a rainy fund set aside is in our research even more important than higher income. So clearly education on the importance of that matters so much and we've found that even just a little bit of savings make a big difference. So we conducted a study with, um, Saver Life and we saw that households that had savings and these are modest savings, savings above a hundred dollars, they were less likely to use high cost borrowing. They are more likely to report being financially satisfied, and they were actually better able to keep the utilities on. And then those that had savings above$250, they were actually less likely to need to move due to financial reasons. So emergency savings has big economic implications and not just, you know, these, these huge savings, but even small modest savings can really make a difference. So, you know, education on this access opportunity to these type of inclusive products are so important. And then, you know, from the research perspective, and I'm a research, so I'm partial to this area, is we need more inclusive research. So we, we can't just, you know, simply compare different communities and see like, oh, these people are doing better than these other people, but we need more research that examines the factors that are associated and that bolster financial capability, economic mobility, financial stability in particular communities so that we can have, you know, better informed and more tailored approaches to advancing financial inclusion for those populations. Because, you know, all these different, um, groups and different populations that we talk about, they're not one size fits all. And we really need to understand the nuances of, um, different populations that we study.
Speaker 3:And I would just add that, you know, taking the practitioner's perspective and also the policy perspective, when we think about having a more inclusive marketplace or providing more inclusive financial education, there are some guiding principles that the foundation uses and we encourage others to also consider these guiding principles. The first being having cultural competency, you know, building relationships, but building with trust. And that requires acknowledging the financial experiences of people without making judgments. And that's regarding the means and the method and respecting cultural differences and working in multiple languages. That's also collaboration as a second principal. And that's recognizing that the capacity building requires a level of commitment and investment and that exceeds what any one of us can do on our own. And that collaboration and taking on collaborative approaches to challenges requires that we actually engage in collective action and leverage resources together. A third principle is learning by doing. You know, the wealth gap has been a long standing and it's been an intractable problem that's not gonna be easily addressed. Um, and the markets have ongoingly existed, but we must embrace that, you know, learning by doing approach that is flexible, that is experimental, that's adaptive, and that is willing to look at solutions that might be outside of the box a a bit. And then I think one of the final, um, principles is taking the long view and that's of having a long term commitment to improving the financial capability of individuals as needed. And that's developing programs and partnerships that really look at that. It's not gonna change overnight, but having that commitment standing forward going forward. And I'd say the final, um, and this is sort of speaks to our current, um, our current status is taking consideration of covid impacts. You know, the pandemic, um, was exacerbated in in having, creating even, um, exacerbating even long standing economic inequities. So partnerships and strategies to overcome economic hardships that have been made worse by the pandemic also require us to take that lens and to create newly. And so when we talk about or think about, you know, financial inclusion and financial inclusive education, these are some factors that I think for practitioners and for policy makers and other stakeholders to keep top of mind.
Speaker 1:Rita, those are great and, and very aligned even with, you know, some of the work that we've done with FINRA Foundation and that we're doing internally as well. But it's interesting the learning by doing and the flexibility and the issues that have kind of risen up throughout the impact of covid 19. I think we've also seen, you know, we've had to be a agile and flexible and experiential through a time that was unprecedented. And I'm hopeful that we'll learn from some of those things too and apply that to some of these changes.
Speaker 4:And this ties into, you know, what I wanted to say that this data that we uncovered today and what we discussed is really just the tip of the iceberg. There's so much more to dig into and so much data that we collected. So as you all were talking about covid, we actually have some covid questions in the dataset that we included about, you know, were you or someone in your household diagnosed with, uh, covid 19, where you furloughed or did you lose your job as a result of the pandemic? So these type of things that can really help explain the different financial scenarios and situations that different households are coping with. And beyond that, we have a breadth of different variables. You can see the, uh, data read the reports@finrafoundation.org slash nfcs. Um, we have a lot of information not just on this most recent data, but the data spanning from 2009 to, uh, today. And as one of the new things that we did with this new data release is we incorporated some data visualizations. So, um, when you visit the site, you'll see that you can interact with the data in this really user friendly and graphic way. Soon we're going to be coming up with more data visualizations. So, um, with the nfcs, one of the things that you can do is look at specific states and see how these different variables look like in your state. So we're gonna have some state analyses where you can look at your state and how it's faring. We, um, also have, like I said, the report, the data sets, all of this data is publicly available for download. So if you visit the website, if you're a researcher, if you're a practitioner who wants to know more about, you know, the financial capability, you can feel free to download the data and explore what there is. And we are constantly coming up with new briefs, with new reports, with new ideas of how we can cut and how we can explain different, you know, things in the data so you can stay tuned. And we're continuously publishing briefs at the FINRA Foundation site. And speaking of one of our forthcoming research projects is the nfcs investor study. So everything that we taught today was the nfcs general study. So we look at consumers overall, but we also do a follow up study on those individuals who say that they have a taxable investment account. So about 3000 or so individuals do a follow up survey and we really dig into their behaviors, their, um, different investing practices, their attitudes, so we can really gauge what investors look like today and how they compare with more traditional investors. So that is a research project that is coming up soon. We expect to release that rapport in mid-December.
Speaker 1:Olivia Rita, thank you for sharing so much with us today and giving us a peek into what to expect at our symposium this November. One of the things we have before we have all guests come on, we ask some questions about our guests and both of you shared some fun facts that I think would be great to share with our listeners. Olivia, you had mentioned that you've moved around quite a bit in your life and that you've never lived more than a half an hour away from the beach. As someone who's lived in the Midwest, that sounds amazing. I'm just curious what beach has been your favorite?
Speaker 4:I have to think about it. So actually I was trying to think about what something fun about me and my life and it just kind of came to me like, oh, I've always lived close to a beach, but I'm not particularly a beach person. I love it. So it's kinda ironic. So I'd have to actually think about what's my favorite beach. So in college I lived, uh, near Clearwater and I'm just, I love Clearwater Beach. So, um, yeah, right now Florida's in the midst of Hurricane Ian, so I really feel for, yeah, that Tampa Bay area, but that it, it's so beautiful there and the beaches there are are my favorite.
Speaker 1:It, it's funny that you say that. I have family that lives in Florida too and I feel like it is the people that live closest to a beach, underappreciate it,<laugh>, you know, know it's always there. So Rita, one of the fun facts that you shared with us is that you've visited all 48 states and it makes me curious, which are the two states that you haven't visited?
Speaker 3:So the two states I haven't visited, of course, are the two that are not contiguous, and that's Hawaii and Alaska, the only two states. And everyone's like, How did you not go to Hawaii and how did you not go to Alaska? And so one of the factoids is that once upon a time I was an investment banker, um, and I traveled all around the country, um, actually working on infrastructure financings for state and local governments. And, and another point in my career I was working for one of the regulators and we were, um, I frequently spoke with state and local government finance officers across the country to make sure they understood their continuing disclosure obligations. And so I had the opportunity to visit all 48 contiguous states and three of the five territories. So the only territories I have not been to are the Meas Islands and Samoa American Samoa. There's the only two. Um, and so of course now they're on my bucket list for at some point in my life to be, to go to complete the map of the us. So that's how I've been able to visit all, all across the country. And, and I would dare say I love all of the states. They all have
Speaker 2:<laugh>, beautiful,
Speaker 3:Um, you know, they all have wonderful features. And a funny story was that growing up because I had too much free time on my hands and my mother wanted to keep me occupied, I once drew all the state birds and state capitals, um, in new, know all the state capitals. So, you know, a little bit of a, I've always been inclined to be interested in communities and state and local governments. It's, it's my first love starting back from when I was about seven.
Speaker 2:Well, you really need to hit Hawaiian and Alaska. I will just throw that in there.<laugh>. Those are
Speaker 3:Plans. There are plans or put that may not wait until I get to the bucket list. So stay
Speaker 2:Tuned.<laugh>. Got it. Hey Rita and Olivia, at the end of each interview we like to ask our guests to share their 2 cents. If you had one piece of advice to leave our listeners, what would it be? And Rita, let's start with you.
Speaker 3:You know, I think one of the things I always love to share with people is that the financial markets are always changing and that's just the nature of the market. The market is composed of people and so to be interested in the financial markets and financial education means being committed to being a lifelong learner. And learning is an ongoing and continuous process. So there, there's always something to learn, there's always something changing. And it doesn't have to be just taking a class, you know, it's committing, you know, two minutes a day to learn something new or understand what's happening in the marketplace. And that's about, if particularly for those of us who care about financial education and engaged in financial counseling to spend, to take the time to make sure that you know, what's new, what's needed, what's wanting and what's missing.
Speaker 2:That's great. Olivia, what's yours?
Speaker 4:I would say that in talking about, you know, advancing financial inclusion and making, you know, markets fair, it's a really big undertaking and I think that we need to acknowledge that no one individual, no one organization, you know, is able to take this on. And it really requires all of us, you know, to work together to figure out our unique situations and unique opportunities that we have to move the needle because we each do have those opportunities. We just need to see where they are because this huge undertaking really requires all of us.
Speaker 2:Thank you both so much for joining the show today, ensuring your wealth of wisdom with us. Can you please tell our listeners where they can connect with you
Speaker 3:In terms of reaching out to us or, um, you can reach us in fact through the FINRA Foundation website. So as Olivia previously mentioned, you can go to FINRA foundation.org and there's a a box that says contact us and you'll, we, you can email us and we are all happy to get back to you. So please reach out to thinner foundation.org and you can find both Olivia and Rita's information, um, on the website.
Speaker 4:And we are super happy to answer any questions. So do feel free to reach out to us.
Speaker 2:Thank you both, we appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Mary, it was so nice to have Rita and Olivia join us today and I'm looking forward to hearing more about the data and, and being able to apply what they're learning to the work that our community is doing. You know, I think these conversations are so important and I also think Rita at the end, she had so many good takeaways about, you know, how we make the marketplace and financial education more inclusive. And so many of those takeaways really resonate with who A F C P E is as an organization. Things like having cultural competency when you're working with a variety of individuals and, and most importantly the value of collaboration. You know, our field and these things that we're learning about the inequities across personal finance space, those things don't get better unless we're collaborating, you know, unless our field is more integrated. And so, you know, whether you're a person with wealth, you know, whether or not these inequities are affecting you, they affect you wherever you are in the landscape and making sure that we're working together and bridging gaps to be able to deliver this type of financial education and create access to this knowledge is so important for long-term change.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. And I think the first step is talking about it, which is exactly what we do today, and we're going to do this again at the symposium in even more depth. So we hope that you're gonna join us there. They've got so much data driven information that is rich. It's longitudinal study that researchers can use multiple ways. But I really like the application to practitioners and that's what I'm really looking forward to getting more involved with is hearing how you can make a difference, right? Each one of us can make a small impact and change to make it a more equitable marketplace. So we hope you choose to join us at this year's symposium to hear more, not only from these speakers, but many other great lineups at our 2022 annual symposium. We'll see you there.