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More people are functionally illiterate than you might expect if you're in a high IQ bubble like the tech industry. In 2017, 19% of American adults scored level 1 or below on the PIAAC literacy test: https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=69

Here's a sample reading test: https://www.oecd.org/skills/piaac/Literacy%20Sample%20Items.... It's a drawing of an ear, and the options are "ear", "egg", "lip" and "jar". You have to pick the correct word.



Wonder how much of this is ESL


If the US has so many non-English speakers that it materially affects national literacy statistics, one might wonder how we ended up with an immigration policy that produces a permanent underclass of people who are locked out of meaningful jobs and are entirely outside the protection of the law, due to being in the country illegally.


You don't have to be in the country illegally to not speak English (well). ~14% of the country is foreign-born, of whom about 3/4 are here legally: https://www.ilctr.org/quick-us-immigration-statistics/


Most immigrants are required to have basic English literacy for citizenship, per:

https://www.uscis.gov/policy-manual/volume-12-part-e-chapter...


You don't need to be a citizen to be a legal immigrant however.




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