
Literacy in the United States - lifeisstillgood
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_in_the_United_States
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lifeisstillgood

      then the resultant literacy   
      rate for the United States 
      would be at most 65-85% 
      depending on where in the 
      basic, minimal competence 
      quantile one sets the 
      cutoff.
    
    

Wait what now? 85% at best?!?!

Seems it's true, with other studies and commentaries. But how can it be true?

~~~
tropo
It's not even that high if you set the bar where most Hacker News readers
would say that a person is capable. Just 15% are supposedly college-level, and
from experience in college I can say that "college-level" isn't always what
you'd hope it to be.

What portion of the population can open to a random page of something like
"Campbell Biology", read the text, and actually understand at least the non-
technical aspects of the text? (that is, ignoring the biology-specific terms
that were explained in prior pages of the book) This is a single-digit
percentage.

Heck, what portion of the population can understand my comment or yours? It's
well below 65%. Illiteracy is one of those things that can be a real shocking
eye-opener for a person who has read well for as long as they can remember.
Things you take for granted -- like reading uncommon (not memorized) road
signs -- are just not possible for a large portion of the population.

