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Comment by ryandrake | Hacker News Reader

This stuff can be Googled to level-set the conversation. First search result says:

- 54% of adults have a literacy below sixth-grade level.

- 21% of Americans 18 and older are illiterate in 2022.

We can dig further to find more sources of data and judge how reputable they are. If those numbers are incorrect, correct them and go from there.

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These are totally different versions of the concept of "literacy", though. Being able to read/write abbreviations of "eggs, scrambled", or "oatmeal" falls well below sixth-grade reading level. Literacy statistics involve much more comprehension than reading/writing food orders. Plenty of illiterate people do work in restaurants writing food orders. This is just a systemized way to remember orders, one that is used across all Waffle Houses, so that an employee from one restaurant switching to another will be just as effective, with no cross training or cultural difference.

What are you trying to say? That all waffle house employees are functionally illiterate? Because that is not what the data says.

No, I have no idea. It does seem that overall US literacy rates are much lower than you’d guess though. Certainly 2x worse than I thought before doing a single Google search.

So it seems wise for companies in general to make their processes accessible to the illiterate, especially if they have more accurate data about their employees’ literacy than this general data.

I only replied because OP seems to be getting jumped on for making a guess that feels uncomfortable to talk about.

That is incredibly state dependent however, looking at https://www.libraryjournal.com/story/How-Serious-Is-Americas..., you are in a different world of literacy if you live in Washington State vs. Texas.

The south happens to be where Waffle House is common.

Luckily https://dollyparton.com/imagination-library is a thing

On a county level, the south doesn't look too bad as long as you're in an urban area: Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, Miami, Tampa, etc.

https://preview.redd.it/adult-literacy-in-the-us-by-county-v...

The south is less urbanized than the north, so that makes sense.

Presumably the fact they filled out a job application is enough barrier toward literacy. Especially towards words like "egg" or "waffle"

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