Unfortunately, rural Appalachia is perennially one of the poorest areas of the United States. Many scholars have offered opinions as to why this trend of poverty continues in this region, but one potential cause has not been the subject of much research: do residents in Appalachia have a functional knowledge of the financial system, or even a simple understanding of basic savings, which is necessary for achieving certain levels of financial security?
We conduct a survey modeled after a national study which measures basic financial literacy in local Appalachia, expecting to find that at-risk Appalachians would have less financial literacy than the national average. While our initial response rate was too low to justify a concrete claim, our preliminary findings suggest that local at-risk Appalachians were more likely to incorrectly answer basic financial literacy questions, and we believe that a larger study into this issue is warranted. Should a concrete outcome arise in the affirmative, we offer suggestions for policy responses, including implementation of free personal finance classes to combat the issue.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ETSU/oai:dc.etsu.edu:honors-1429 |
| Date | 01 May 2017 |
| Creators | Osborne, Elijah R |
| Publisher | Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University |
| Source Sets | East Tennessee State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Undergraduate Honors Theses |
| Rights | Copyright by the authors., http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ |
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