A Boring Dystopia

To play devils advocate, is this really a huge issue? As a construction worker friend of mine put it quite plainly, Most Americans don't really need to be able to read anything more comprehensive than street signs to do their jobs, a 6th grade reading level is pretty proficient, maybe a bit slower but it gets the job done

Edit: a lot of you seem to be taking this weirdly personally, just read further and pretend I'm not attacking you directly

what's the concrete advantage of the average person reading at a high level is, past some sort of weird elitism?

they clearly haven't needed the skill in their lives, or their reading level wouldn't have "atrophied" over time, so what's the point?

i also don't particularly care how well the average adult has their multiplication tables memorised