12:19 PM CDT on Monday, April 10, 2006

Are Americans really such bad savers as most economic data suggest? Yes and no, according to a new measure of the state of U.S. household wealth.

When the value of investments and homes are included in assessing Americans' financial health, it turns out they're doing a "fair" job of building wealth, according to a new measure developed by A.G. Edwards, the investment company.

When looked at alone, the national savings rate was a dismal negative 0.7 percent in January; it fell into negative territory in 2005 for the first time since the Great Depression.

But some say measuring net worth offers better insight into the state of Americans' finances. The net worth of U.S. households – assets minus liabilities – increased 8 percent at the end of 2005, though it was the slowest growth in net worth since a 4 percent decline in 2002.

A.G. Edwards developed its Nest Egg Score, which assigns a single numerical value to 12 measures, including the national savings rate, home values, participation in retirement plans and the cost of living, among other things.

A.G. Edwards assigns a score to each factor, and then combines and weights those to produce a single score, which the company will release quarterly.

For the fourth quarter of 2005, Americans' ability to build personal wealth garnered a 648 on the A.G. Edwards index.

The index runs on the following scale: 450 to 549, poor; 550 to 649, fair; 650 to 749, good; and 750 to 850, excellent.

April is Financial Literacy Month.

Financial literacy among American high school seniors showed scant improvement over the past two years, a recent survey found.

A nationwide survey of high school seniors found they answered 52.4 percent of questions about personal finances correctly on average in 2006, about unchanged from 52.3 percent in 2004. In 1997, 57 percent were answered correctly.

"We need to find a more effective way of teaching this stuff," said Lewis Mandell, a professor of finance and managerial economics at State University of New York's School of Management in Buffalo.

Mr. Mandell conducted the survey for the JumpStart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy, a Washington-based nonprofit group.

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From staff and wire reports