Scott Bessent says Americans chasing quick money are making themselves poorer, not richer. In an interview with The in April, the 63-year-old Treasury secretary urged workers to build a budget, save for the future and put money to work instead of buying lottery tickets.
“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 said people should invest and then watch it grow, a message he has made central since joining President Donald Trump’s administration.
The comments fit a bigger push from Bessent to talk about financial literacy in plain terms. He made his money in hedge funds, worked with George Soros and was involved in the Soros firm’s 1992 currency speculation against the British pound tied to Black Wednesday. He later launched his own hedge fund, Key Square Group, but his message now is aimed far below Wall Street. David Darst described him as a “guy who’s working at the highest levels, but he’s interested in people learning the ABCs of finance.”
That focus is rooted in Bessent’s own life. He grew up in rural South Carolina near Myrtle Beach, got his first jobs at age 9 as a busboy at a cafeteria and setting up chairs and umbrellas on the beach, and later attended Yale University. In 1979, he wanted to go to the U.S. Naval Academy but was barred as an openly gay applicant, and he was also shut out of the foreign service. In 2025, he became the nation’s first openly gay treasury secretary.
Bessent’s warnings land at a time when many Americans are still struggling with housing, groceries, energy and other everyday costs, and when the nation’s debt has climbed past $39 trillion. The latest -NORC polling cited in the interview showed Trump’s approval rating on the economy falling from 38% in March to 30% in April. That makes Bessent’s pitch less about personal discipline in the abstract than about a government trying to persuade people that patience and saving still matter, even when the economy feels out of reach.
He also made clear that his own rise did not change how he sees the basics. He said he sits there knowing Trump chose him because he believes he is the best candidate, then pointed back to the lesson he wants Americans to hear: spend less time hoping for a windfall and more time building something that lasts.