• Synapse@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        11
        ·
        4 hours ago

        Wow, those figures are shocking. US of A, 1st economy in the world, 1st military power in the world and our space, 36th in literacy rate. I am sad for fellow Americans :(

        • TunaCowboy@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          14
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          3 hours ago

          The US should be doing much better in all categories based on its wealth alone, but this is kind of an important factor.

          34% of adults lacking literacy proficiency were born outside the US.

          • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            4
            ·
            edit-2
            2 hours ago

            With the two high stats being on the North East, and the low stats being in the south west near the border with Mexico.

            So that makes me wonder what percentage of the 34% that were not born here are literate in another language

            Because I know I have met a number of people who have moved here and haven’t learned English yet, but if you pass a translation app between each other, they can read it in their native language.

        • ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          8
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          edit-2
          4 hours ago

          The US ranks 36th in literacy.

          This is a deceptive statistic. It merely indicates that many countries like Uzbekistan and North Korea falsely report 100% literacy rates. Look here. The USA literacy rate is actually about the same as that of other wealthy Western democracies.

      • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        3 hours ago

        The percentage of the population that’s illiterate is way higher than it has any business being.

        Like “can’t read at an elementary school level”.

        “There are three kinds of lies: Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics” - Mark Twain

        Not in your link, but I found the same statistics as your link in another with a critical piece of information:

        “According to researchers, 4 out of 5 Americans 18 and over possess medium to high proficiency in English reading and writing.” source

        These statistics, both your link and mine, may only be measuring literacy in English.

        So looking to get a clue how many may have literacy in another language:

        “Today, 13.8 percent of the nation’s residents are foreign-born” source

        So at least a percentage of those being counted as USA illiterate may indeed be literate in another language that isn’t English.