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Workplace Financial Literacy

    Michigan Council on Economic Education is offering workshops that help participants get a clear picture of their current financial situation and teach them a system for developing a course of action that blends their future quality of life with their job/career goals. This is done in the context of personalizing the decision-making process and helping participants internalize the economic principles of scarcity, opportunity costs and productivity.

Workshops are continually forming. Come back soon to see when one is available in your area or at your place of work.

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Economic Principles -- The concepts behind financial literacy:

Scarcity necessitates choice. Everything we do reflects a choice we make. If we can't have everything we would like, we must choose those things we want the most. The more choices we make that reflect conscious decision-making, the more control we have over the quality of our lifestyle.

Opportunity Cost is the forgone benefit of the alternatives not chosen. This is where the concept of "trade-offs" plays a key role in making decisions when choosing a certain service or product over another. Perhaps without realizing it, consumers continuously practice "marginalism" as they consider whether to buy one more or one unit less of a good or service in an effort to obtain the mix of goods and services that will provide them with the greatest satisfaction for their available buying power.

Incentives are factors that motivate and influence human behavior. Economic incentives work by describing benefits associated with various goods and services in order to influence economic decisions.

Economic Systems is the collection of institutions, laws, activities, controlling values and human motivations that collectively provide a framework for economic decision-making. Our system is a Market Economy of decentralized decision-making in which individuals can act as consumers, producers, workers, savers and/or investors. People paricipate in this market through decisions that are reflected in the supply and demand for various goods and services.

Productivity is the amount of output (goods and services) produced per unit of input (productive resources) used. The three principal means of increasing productivity are: (1) specialization and the division of labor; (2) investments in capital goods; and (3) investment in human capital.

Trade or exchange is the distribution of the excess output that was created by producers which they themselves cannot consume. Money in turn facilitates this exchange. As productivity improves through specialization, self-sufficiency is further reduced and replaced by the need for interdependence. This means that decisions or events in one part of the world, or one sector of our economy effect decisions and events elsewhere. This concept of interdependence applies also to the time dimension. Which means that financial decisions made today will impact on financial decisions and circumstances in the future.

At its core, the Financial Literacy workshop series is designed to teach the practical application of a 5-step decision making process as it applies to personal finance.

1. Define issue ---> 2. Establish criteria --> 3. Identify alternatives --> 4. Evaluate alternatives --> 5. Make decision.

To inquire about workplace financial literacy workshops, please contact Ted Lakkides, Director, at ted@mceeonline.org.