Some arguments for financial education are daft. Top of the list is seeing financial education as a protection against the various failures, criminalities and seductions of the financial industry. If there were an empowered and financially literate population, the argument goes, then the credit crunch, the banking crisis, mis-selling of financial products and the country's £1.4 trillion of personal debt would never have happened.
If only people had been capable of planning properly and acting responsibly, these aberrations would have been avoided. It's twisted logic and lousy analysis. Sadly, even within the sector, people are tempted into it.
Here's a much better argument for widespread financial education. It's prompted by a report published this week on how the UK's youth information, advice and counselling agencies are managing to survive. The survey by Youth Access asked, among other things, about the continued and relentless demand for agencies' highly valued and overstretched services.
Second on the list of key areas of increasing demand are social welfare advice issues such as homelessness, housing, money and benefits. No doubt about the financial education links there.
But what about the biggest growth area of increasing demand? That's mental ill-health and emotional wellbeing. Issues included stress, depression, anxiety and suicidal feelings.
Could these be at all related to the social welfare issues, and therefore also connected to money management? I called James Kenrick, the report's author, and asked him. His response was immediate and certain: "Absolutely." There are well-established and strong links between mental health and those social issues. Put bluntly, money problems and the ensuing debt, housing and other problems increase mental illness. Mental illness reduces people’s ability to manage money well. It's well attested by research and by workers' direct experiences. And it's so blindingly obvious that it's hard to imagine anyone not understanding it.
So let's skip the convoluted and far-fetched arguments justifying financial education. Much better to concentrate on the non-contentious reality. Problems with managing money are at the root of an awful lot of avoidable suffering for individuals and their families. Those individuals are arriving in increasing numbers, and with more and more complex needs, at the doors of struggling youth advice agencies. Financial education won't solve the problems at a stroke. But for as long as it is not available to the most vulnerable, things will continue to get worse.
PJ White is editor of youthmoney.org.uk
