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bodhipooh t1_jdi4gb7 wrote

Reply to comment by SweetheartAtHeart in US cities with the highest taxes by Accomplished_Day2991

> If I had to raise a family somewhere, I’d pay more to live somewhere where there aren’t more people on meth than people who are literate. You get what you pay for.

Er... tons of places all over the US with much more reasonable taxes that are not shitholes filled with backward hicks or meth-heads. It's a weird take (but a common one among people in this region) to think it's either crazy taxes (for very shitty roads and infrastructure, government corruption, and overall HCOL - so not exactly getting all that much for what we pay) or living in real-life Ozark with meth, hillbillies, and whatever other stuff you are imagining.

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SweetheartAtHeart t1_jdib8z3 wrote

I never said it’s one or the other. I was talking about Alabama versus jersey specifically because that is what’s in the charts. Context.

Edit: also, weird to say I’m imagining that parts of Alabama aren’t literally known for that and it’s documented that they have low literacy rates. They’re in bottom 10 if not bottom 7 if I remember correctly. This is easily verifiable lmao.

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moobycow t1_jdjh7kv wrote

Literacy rate can be a weird stat, because if you are an a immigrant whose first language isn't English, you're likely considered illiterate.

Which may be a very different situation than someone who is just generally illiterate.

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SweetheartAtHeart t1_jdjznoh wrote

This is a pretty good point. So there are different levels of literacy I’ve noticed. Sometimes, I’ve seen it referred to as just broadly unable to read and/or write a simple, short sentence while I’ve also seen it specifically clarified as below a specific grade level. There are also more official levels that can be read about more and you can read more about what each level is defined at. I remember coming across a pdf a while ago that broke up what each state’s literacy rate by each level was. Alabama was still ranked very low.

I imagine to get a rough estimate, you could say that you should try to account for immigrants by checking the proportion of illiterate people per population of both state and then also state minus immigrant population to see both. However, it doesn’t truly give us a very good idea because inaccurate immigrant count might lead to inaccuracies in known population and because I don’t know if it’s fair to says majority of all immigrants can’t read or write a simple sentence in English. There are lots of citizens who are immigrants and a fair amount of the citizenship test involves being able to read and study beforehand for example.

Edited a word.

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xTheShrike t1_jdihyxn wrote

California has the lowest literacy rate fyi

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SweetheartAtHeart t1_jdijgp0 wrote

Yep! Well aware. I didn’t say Alabama has the lowest literacy rate. I actually specifically stated they’re bottom 10 or bottom 7.

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