Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who grew up poor in rural South Carolina and became a billionaire hedge fund manager, is on a mission to steer Americans away from what he sees as the false promise of instant wealth. In an interview with The Associated Press at the close of Financial Literacy Month, Bessent said he winces when he sees young construction workers buying lottery tickets or consumers turning to buy-now-pay-later loans — habits he believes keep people trapped in financial precarity.
“There are a lot of young people, mostly young men, going to blue-collar construction jobs, playing the lottery. It drives me crazy,” Bessent said. “The best thing you can do is not play the lottery,” he added — rather, people should invest and “then watch it grow.”
Bessent, 63, traces his own drive to a childhood where his father, a real estate developer, lost generations of family wealth through overleveraging. He worked as a busboy and set up beach chairs at age 9, later attended Yale University, and went on to a finance career that included a famous 1992 bet against the British pound alongside George Soros. He later founded the hedge fund Key Square Group. After his confirmation as the nation’s first openly gay treasury secretary, he told lawmakers, “I sit here knowing that President Trump chose me because he believes I’m the best candidate, not because of my sexual preference, not because treasury secretaries with green eyes do better.”
Since joining the administration, Bessent has made financial literacy a signature issue. He relaunched Financial Literacy Month at the Treasury Department and convened roundtables with community bankers who described a surge in sophisticated fraud schemes and their own efforts to get teenagers interested in saving. “It could be as simple as a 14-year-old starting a savings account and watching interest compound at 4% a year,” said Thomas Fraser, CEO of First Mutual Holding Co., who attended one of the sessions.
Bessent also promotes Trump Accounts — a proposal to give $1,000 at birth to babies born during the Trump administration, with the money invested in the stock market until the child turns 18. “The power of compounding, because that money is locked up for 18 years,” Bessent said, arguing the program would teach a generation about investing.
But critics say his personal-finance message collides with a government that is itself drowning in debt. The national debt reached $39 trillion in March, larger than the entire U.S. economy. Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, praised Bessent’s goal to cut deficits to 3% of gross domestic product but said, “it’s going to take a combination of spending reductions, revenue increases and economic growth” to get there. She noted that “the Trump administration in particular has a problematic record on cutting taxes without offsets and growing spending.”
Others argue the issue is not financial knowledge but the sheer cost of living. Emily DiVito, senior adviser for economic policy at the left-leaning Groundwork Collaborative, said, “You cannot preach penny-pinching while making it harder for Americans to pay their grocery, utility and healthcare bills. If Secretary Bessent is serious about advancing financial literacy, he should focus on lowering the cost of living for working families.”
Public confidence in the administration’s economic management has weakened. The AP-NORC poll found Trump’s approval on the economy fell to 30% in April, down from 38% in March, as households faced persistently high housing, grocery, and energy prices.
Bessent’s allies say his commitment predates his government service. Geoff Canada, president of Harlem Children’s Zone, has known Bessent for 30 years and said the treasury secretary mentored one of the program’s scholars for more than a decade. Bessent has “a deep understanding that financial literacy is essential for fostering real social and economic mobility for America’s children,” Canada said, adding that Bessent “has championed this issue long before joining the administration, and I know it remains a top priority.”
MacGuineas, while supportive of the literacy push, summed up the paradox: “It’s hard to disagree with the fact that we need more financial literacy in this country. The bigger picture, of course, is that we should also probably give a financial literacy class to our lawmakers.”