Teens usually come up short when asked how money works

WASHINGTON - They like to spend it, but young people don't know much about how money works.

On average, high school seniors answered correctly only 52.4 percent of questions about personal finance and economics, according to a nationwide survey released Wednesday. Still, that was a smidgen better than the 52.3 percent in the previous survey in 2004 and was up from the lowest-ever score of 50.2 percent in 2002.

"This indicates that, despite the attention now paid to the lack of financial literacy, the problem is not about to resolve itself anytime soon," said Lewis Mandell, a professor of finance and managerial economics at the University of Buffalo School of Management who …