Abstract: 

A large portion of literature on financial literacy focuses on the impacts of financial education programs; however, it has been found that lack of financial exposure for teenagers often limits the effectiveness of financial education. There is a gap within the scope of work experience as a means of exposure, specifically for teenagers, in the current body of literature. This study conducted online surveys of American high school students, collecting data on the work experience of participants and then testing their financial literacy using the OECD’s financial literacy test. Overall, work experience was found to have no significant correlation with the financial literacy of high school students. Various factors of work experience were also found to have no correlation with financial literacy in working participants, aside from findings that showed workers in the food industry to have lower financial knowledge. In general, these findings indicate that work experience on its own cannot improve financial literacy, which suggests that future research should be done on how other combinations of factors influence financial literacy in order to improve financial literacy in teenagers.