The FINRA Foundation’s National Financial Capability Study : unpacking 12 years of data on U.S. financial capability

The National Financial Capability Study (NFCS) is a large-scale, ongoing research project of the FINRA Foundation that provides a broad range of stakeholders the ability to examine and better understand the financial capability of U.S. adults. First introduced in 2009, the NFCS has dozens of publicly available reports and data sets that are free to download. Data from the NFCS contain information on people's ability to make ends meet, their management of financial products and services, the extent to which they plan ahead, their financial knowledge and decision-making, and numerous other topics. This paper provides an overview of the history, methodology, and some insights gained from the NFCS over the years. In addition, given the NFCS' unique role as the birthplace of the Big 5 financial literacy questions that are present in all waves of the NFCS, we discuss the role of the NFCS in aiding our understanding of financial knowledge in the United States. The paper concludes with a look toward the future of the NFCS.