I was an econ major, and a lot of the lower level courses were required for business majors.

It was genuinely shocking how many people from the latter group just could not understand the absolute basics of supply curves and demand curves.

The upside is that I was able to help them understand it by offering tutoring, where I was in limited supply, and there was endless demand for my services!

I get your point, but literacy rate is high in the US, so most Americans can, in fact, read.

However, they rarely read books and indeed most don’t read at a university level.

Rarely reading books is also not tied strictly to the US.

Studies consistently find about 20% of Americans are functionally illiterate, depending on what is meant by functionally illiterate. This means that they can read, but frequently cannot grasp the meaning of what they read.

The US is actually pretty illiterate compared to peer countries.

Higher than I expected although I’m not totally surprised given the US educational system.