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Goes a bit farther than that. I have a family friend who struggles to read the menus at restaurants. But she's also desperately poor, a high school drop out, and regularly between jobs in a service sector that's totally unforgiving to people in her position.
I do think there's a reinforcing cycle of "Everything is written at the 6th grade level" -> "Everyone communicates at the 6th grade level". But I also don't think these articles do a good job of defining the difference between a 4th grade, 8th grade, 12th grade, collegiate level. So when you see this statistic, its not entirely clear what the problem is, per say. Like, what isn't being communicated beyond 6th grade literacy levels that people need?
Per the article:
...
...
Few citations, lots of big claims and speculative statements, the tendency to catastrophize (and inject implicit nostalgia) as though 6th grade literacy trends are a shocking new development rather than the historical baseline.
None of it really translates into actionable policy. All it seems to do is feed the prevailing Everyone is Stupid Except Me self-aggrandizing outlook. I tend to see these articles paired with the inevitable reactionary "We should impose literacy tests on voting" and "Would have this problem if not for all the damned rednecks / illegals / minorities / " outlooks.
I mean. I worked in public policy for a few years. Most of the policy makers, the politicians, and their staff... can't do any of that either. Despite the fact most of them have multiple degrees.
But they sure as shit can shout about how stupid it all is and now their gut feelings about taxation are more important than the policy paper a taxation economist writes about it after years of doing research on it. When our highly educated professional politicians can't pass that standards, I'm not really going to fault the broader public who have a high school diploma at best, for not being able to do so.
There are a lot of brilliant people in our government... but nobody is listening to them. The majority of my highl educated highly literate peers here in Boston... also don't listen to them. They just 'know' that all taxes are bad. mmkay?