Question of the Day: What are the most important job skills for which employers see the biggest gap in preparedness among college students?
Thank you for being regular users of NGPF's Question of the Day. This will be the final QoD for the 2019-20 school year. Please drop me a line at tim@ngpf.org to let me know your favorite question of the year or tell me about the creative ways that you use them. I hope that these questions launched thousands of great discussions in classrooms across the country. Thank you and enjoy your summer!
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Answer: Top 6 skills that employers identified as having largest gap...
Question of the Day: February of 2020 marked the end of the longest economic expansion in U.S. history. How many months did this expansion last?
Answer: 128 months
Questions:
What happened in February that led the economy to shift from expansion to a recession, which is a period of economic decline?
How do you think that consumer mindset changes during a recession in terms of their buying behavior?
Do you think that people tend to save more during a recession or during an economic expansion?
The expansion lasted 128 months, how long do you think the current recession might last?
Click here for the ready-to-go...
Question of the Day (Update): How Do People Decide What Credit Card To Get?
Answer: Rewards!
Excerpt from the Survey:
Generationally, 33% of millennials (ages 23-38) and 34% of Gen Xers (ages 39-54) say APR is the most important factor when deciding which credit card to apply for, compared with 24% of baby boomers (ages 55-73), the survey found.
Boomers are more likely to say rewards or a card’s annual fee is the most important factor — 40% picked rewards as the top factor, compared with 29% of millennials and 31% of Gen Xers, and 24% of boomers...
Question of the Day (Update): How Do People Pay For Things?
This Federal Reserve of San Francisco report is chock-full of graphs about payment preferences gathered from their 2018 Diary of Consumer Payment Choice. With so many graphs to choose from, I thought this one could kick-start a great discussion:
Just to orient you as to what is being measured here, this graph focuses on the number of transactions rather than the actual value. So, while the percentage of cash transactions might seem high, most of these transactions were for small...
Question of the Day: Do investors buy stocks in companies based on TV commercials?
Answer: YES
Questions:
Why do you think that investors buy stocks in companies after they see a TV ad on those companies?
Are there ads or commercials that you have seen over the past week where you think "Hmmm...that could be a good investment?"
Do you think this is a good idea? What other research might you want to do before making a decision to buy stock?
Click here for the ready-to-go slides for this Question of the Day that you can use in your classroom.
Behind the...
Question of the Day (Update): If you invested $1,000 in Netflix stock ten years ago, what would it be worth now?
Answer: NFLX: $71,765.89! (as of 5/29/20)
Remember when subscribing to Netflix meant watching the mailbox for DVDs?
Netflix shares have been prone to large gains and losses as it has grown into a dominant media company. But like Apple, Netflix wasn’t exactly the company it is today 10 years ago. In May of 2008, Netflix was primarily a mail-order DVD rental company that had just rolled out a streaming service that was capped at 10 hours of free viewing a month for the base...
Question of the Day: Excluding rent or mortgage payments, what is the most expensive monthly bill paid by households?
Answer: Auto loans
Click here for the ready-to-go slides for this Question of the Day that you can use in your classroom.
Questions
This research focused on bills that are paid by households. What other major costs would show up in a typical household budget?
4 of the 9 monthly bills have this word in them. What is it?
Which billing category above do you think families may be looking to reduce now?
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A great way to end the year is with our Salary-Based...
Question of the Day: What grocery item saw the sharpest price increase in April 2020: Eggs, Fruits and Veggies or Meats?
Answer: Eggs
Questions:
What normally is the cause of higher prices on grocery items? Why do you think prices rose so quickly in April?
How do you think consumers react when prices of certain grocery items go up? Do they stop buying them, buy less or still buy the same amount or more?
Do you anticipate these prices to continue to increase in the month ahead? Why or why not?
Click here for the ready-to-go slides for this Question of the Day that you can use in your classroom....
Question of the Day: What were the five most popular Questions of the Day for the 2019-20 School Year?
See how well you can do with the top 5 questions from this school year:
What percent of 18-34 year olds are investing in the stock market?
What percent of U.S. millionaires are professional athletes?
What percent of college graduates end up working in the field of their major?
What will your credit score be after your first six months of making on-time payments?
Would you rather have $1,000,000 or start with a penny and double your money every day for 30 days?
Answers:
37% of 18-34 year olds...
Question of the Day [Updated]: What percent of U.S. high school students are required to take a personal finance course to graduate?
Answer: 18.4%
Questions:
Is a personal finance course a graduation requirement in your high school?
Go to this map here to find out the situation in your state.
Do you think that personal finance should be a required course? Explain your answer.
What do you think are the 3-4 main topics that should be covered in a personal finance course for high school students?
Click here for the ready-to-go slides for this Question of the Day that you can use in your classroom.
Behind the numbers...
Question of the Day (Update): What percent of Gen Z has never written a physical check to pay a bill?
Answer: around 33%
Questions:
Did this number surprise you? Why or why not?
What are examples of bills that might require a physical check?
As Gen Z gets older, do you expect this number to be higher or lower? Explain.
Click here for the ready-to-go slides for this Question of the Day that you can use in your classroom.
Behind the numbers (from Forbes):
"Young adults are using peer-to-peer payments more than the two generations before them. That’s despite...
Question of the Day: What percent of workers with a college degrees have jobs that could be done from home?
With lots of talk about how the coronavirus may have long-lasting effects on the workplace (for more check out last week's FinCap Friday), the answer to this question highlights how workers with a college education have more options when it comes to where their work gets done.
Answer: 62%
Questions:
What types of jobs can be done from home?
Do you think that the workplace changes that came about due to the coronavirus will persist enabling more people to work from home?
What do you...
Question of the Day (UPDATED): How many of the top 10 Financial Apps can you Name?
Here's the leader board as of 5/17/20 (from SimilarWeb):
Questions:
Do you have financial apps on your phone?
If so, which do you use most often?
If not, why not?
What are the pros of cons of using your mobile phone to manage your bank account?
Here's the ready-to-go slides for this Question of the Day that you can use in your classroom.
Behind the numbers (from Forbes):
As more payments take place electronically and bank branches slowly disappear,...
Question of the Day: What's the new interest rate on federal student loans for 2020-21 school year?
Answer: 2.75%
Questions:
How does this interest rate for undergraduates (at 4 year colleges) compare to historical averages?
How does the interest rates on graduate loans (GradPLUS) and parent loans (PLUS) compare to undergraduate loans?
Reading the footnotes on the graph, what determines the interest rate on federal student loans and how often is this rate adjusted?
Click here for the ready-to-go slides for this Question of the Day that you can use with your students.
Behind...
Question of the Day (Updated): What is the median savings account balance for Americans under 35?
Answer: $1,000
Questions:
Explain why the the median savings for each age group is lower than the average savings by age as indicated in the article?
What is the relationship between age and savings accounts balances? Explain why you think the relationship exists.
How much will you need to have in a savings account to feel secure (sleep well at night)?
Here's the ready-to-go slides for this Question of the Day that you can use in your classroom.
Behind the numbers (from 2019...
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