Comparing Retirement to Income in Financial Literacy by Aanya (class of 2022)

During the Financial Literacy unit in Transitional Math 7, students researched a career of interest including the beginning salary for the career. They then had to balance a budget based on monthly expenses. Part of their expenses included saving at least 10% of their income for retirement. Students used their beginning income and the percent of income invested for their retirement from their budget to determine how their retirement and income would grow over 30 years. Income was assumed to grow at a steady but low rate, and retirement was assumed to grow at an average of 6% per year over 30 years. Both were graphed to compare the growth of each, and we talked about how income grows more like a line (linear growth) whereas retirement growths faster over time, more like exponential growth.