Missourians report that lack of financial knowledge carries a high cost, according to the NFEC’s most recent survey. Participants across the state responded to the single question: “During the past year, about how much money do you think you lost because you lacked knowledge about personal finances?” The results are shown below. Since 2017, the NFEC has conducted this annual survey, consistently revealing that the average individual cost of financial illiteracy approaches or exceeds $1,000 per person – with estimated national losses reaching into the hundreds of billions of dollars each year, and losses in the hundreds of millions across Missouri.

Housing insecurity and food insecurity represent the two most important metrics that characterize Americans’ financial vulnerability. Nonprofit organization Feeding America indicates that hunger among Missourians is a significant problem, with close to a million people (951,330; 15.1%) facing food insecurity in the state – one out of every six individuals. Of those people, 248,620 are children. A total 44.8% of Missouri households receiving SNAP (formerly food stamps) benefits have children in the home.

Housing insecurity paints a similar picture, with the World Population Review (WPR) reporting that 7,312 individuals were unhoused in Missouri in 2024 – a homeless rate of 12%, and a figure that has increased by 17% since 2007. WPR’s definition of homelessness is “living in a temporary shelter or transitional housing or sleeping in a place not meant for habitation (like an abandoned building).”