It is certainly interesting that the "National Assessment of Adult Literacy" report indicates that only 13% of adults can perform that sample task of "computing and comparing the cost per ounce of food items".
Same for comparing and contrasting two newspaper articles, which is probably even more relevant -- if you can't do that, then you're immediately disqualified from pretty much every profession that pays a living wage. And that's not even a very high bar, considering that newspapers are written at what's supposed to be a 6th - 8th grade reading level.
