4 ms·

It says 34% of adults lacking literacy proficiency were born outside the US, but not how many born outside the US are lacking literacy proficiency, and neither

• rcyeh 3y ago
  Agreed, the presentation of summarized statistics in the web page seems intended to shock, and it’s hard to reconcile some numbers: According to the Census 2020 Current Population Survey[1]: * There are 44.9 MM foreign-born in the US, of which 95.9% are age 15 or more. Of the 39.5 MM (88% of foreign-born) age 25 and over: 13.6% do not have/86.4% have at least 8th-grade education; 75% have at least high-school diploma. * Total population of US is 331.45 MM, of which 81.4% are age 15-and-older, so foreign-born is 13.5% of total, or 16% of 15-and-older. If we believe that 21% of 15-and-older lack literacy proficiency, and 34% of those are foreign-born, then we multiply to get: 7% of 15-and-older are both foreign-born and lack literacy proficiency. But then comparing with the CPS, 7% of 15-and-older is nearly half of the 16% foreign-born fraction of 15-and-older, and seems inconsistent with the CPS statistic that more than 69% of 15-and-older foreign-born (75% of 25-and-older, which represent 88% of all foreign-born) have at least high school education. There are some basis risk problems (literacy statistics vs educational attainment; 2024 data vs 2020 data); but I would think those are probably rounding errors. I suspect the top-line 21% number is inflated. [1]: https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2020/demo/foreign-born/cps-2020.html https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2020/demo/foreign-born/cp... , particularly tables 2.1 and 2.5