If 21 % can't read (are Illiterate) then it makes sense that 79 % can read (are literate). So yes, nationwide and in the US are the same thing.

Besides that, I agree. No sources is a no go and no moderated comments is a fucking biohazard.

When I designed store fixtures, the assembly instructions had to be written at a 3rd grade reading level, and even then were barely followed.

Land of the Free 🇺🇸 World Incarceration Rates If Every U.S. State Were A Country

Audiobooks aren't really a good solution to be honest. Reading / writing literacy are the basis of scholarship. We have centuries of research and examples that we've turned our back on that efficient learning happens only when you can unlock good literacy skills. Specifically the aspect of reading/physical writing/sublingualization is a cornerstone of comprehension of complex ideas. With something like Marxism that's based on understanding both technical and archaic language and social constructs it becomes really hard. There are tons of self professed Marxists that couldn't tell you what commodity fetishism actually means in simple terms.

Great example is the Communist Manifesto itself, meant to be a pamphlet for factory workers in the 19th century, but is typically a mildly difficult text to approach for the average person today.

Audiobooks can replace something like pleasure reading where you're just reading pulp garbage, but they're not really a good replacement for learning.

The parentposting is the worst with math.

My favorite flavor is the "THIS 5th GRADE HOMEWORK IS TOO HARD" when the adult clearly has never learned basic concepts like order of operations (PEMDAS) and cardinality of logic (e.g. how you solve sudoku where you order working through the solution always taking the smallest number of unknowns, first solve places where only one numbers missing until there are no first rank order problems, then move on to second rank order problems where two numbers are missing).

But there are definitely parents answering 'she was looking for Romeo when she said "wherefore art thou Romeo?"'.

You can 100% see this degradation with adults in real time if you look at popular reality TV shows that have puzzle/knowledge/trivia components like Survivor and The Challenge and just binge watch the whole back catalog. You'll see things getting harder until the game hits its stride and identity but then at one point just simpler and simpler and simpler.

Survivor is actually pretty bad now because the entire show started cheaping out and reusing things over and over again. So people just started 3d printing the puzzles and memorizing them. Literally No Reality TV Contestant Left Behind style pipeline. The other thing is that they completely devalued the actual survival aspects of the show, and it's a game of attrition where it's who can think straight on the lowest amount of calories. The only reason to know any actual survival skills on that show anymore is just in case of tie breakers where they have to make fire from flint.

More like TLCR.

I see what you did there

Yeah because it's primary research and this is a huge unaddressed and uncared about problem that's only growing. The last National Assessment for Adult Literacy took place in 2003.

PIAAC (PROGRAM FOR THE INTERNATIONAL ASSESSMENT OF ADULT COMPETENCIES) which this is likely partially based on is typically who provides the survey data to these institutions.

Barbara Bush Foundation is another source that deals specifically with this.

A lot of this data is cobbled together because the government has practically defunded any studies of this issue. Literacy has effectively been taken for granted and hasn't actually been upheld. Everyone in this space says more data is needed but isn't optimistic that more data is going to paint a better picture of literacy (both in children and adults) in the US.