PBS's Need To Know re-braodcast on Sunday April 21(perhaps original air date was a few days earlier) presented a program on Financial Literacy. It highlighted a program in Missiissippi directed at educating kids (as young as 1st grade) and their parents about developing savings habits and the importance of having a bank account. I got curious about the statistics. The FDIC published results of a survey in 2011. The information that follows comes from that survery, which you can find here: 2012 Underbanked Survery (or go to
http://www.fdic.gov/householdsurvey/2012_unbankedreport.pdf ).
Click for a larger graph.
The proportion of unbanked households varies by demographics such as race and ethnicity. Unbanked rates are higher among non-Asian minority households than other racial and ethnic groups. Black (21.4 percent), Hispanic (20.1 percent), and American Indian (14.5 percent) households have the largest proportions of unbanked households. In contrast, much smaller proportions of white and Asian households (4.0 percent and 2.7 percent, respectively) are unbanked (see Figure 4.1). Unbanked households are also disproportionately represented among foreign-born non-citizens (22.2 percent)and households where Spanish is the only language spoken (36.9 percent).
Here's an interactive map by CNN Money showing how the Un/under-banked spread out by state: CNN Money Map from FDIC Data. This map used the data from the FDIC Underbanked survey mentioned above.
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