571
Well, this is quite upsetting to read.
(lemmy.nz)
More (not so) fun facts:
54% of American adults read below a 6th grade level.
21% read below a 5th grade level, which is considered functionally illiterate.
High immigration numbers don't fully explain it either, as first gen immigrants only make up about 1/3 of those with low literacy.
Looks like it's from a Mar-25 2026 paywalled Substack by Vox co-founder Matthew Yglesias, his blog is called Slow Boring, but I'm not paying to find out more.
That's where this screenshot is from, but this statistic is way older than that. Here's an article from 2022