"U.S. millennials post ‘abysmal’ scores in tech skills test, lag behind foreign peers

[merolpn]

So the whole socialism/capitalism, poverty debate aside, I would like to point something out that I do not recall being mentioned.

The U.S. has a population of about 318 Million people. The 18-34 age group in the U.S. makes up roughly 23% of the 318 Million for 73.14 Million. Japan has the next highest population at 127.3 Million people. I was able to find the 2010 Japanese census and the 18-34 Age group make up roughly 18% of their population for an estimated 22.9 Million people.

*******I realize that the article gives the 16-34 statistics NOT 18-34, however I already did my calculations and it is all relative anyway*******

I used 21% to calculate how many people from each country were in that age range. Basically, the average of the U.S. and Japanese number rounded up.

So, basically the U.S. placed within 21 points of the highest scoring Japan on literacy while educating the same number of people as, Japan, Finland, Netherlands, South Korea, Flanders, Sweden, Estonia, Australia, Czech Republic, Norway, Canada and Germany.

Finland scored at the top of the "Numeracy" test. They have a whopping 5.5 Million people with just 1.15 Million people in the 18-34 age group. The U.S. had to educate 63 TIMES the amount of people than Finland.

I think it speaks volumes about the U.S. to be able to educate so many people and be within reach of the top. What I find astounding is that given the fact that a country like Finland is educating basically 1/60th the number of people their scores aren't 60 times better. They are not even 2 times better.

The same goes for Japan, they have less than 1/3rd the number of people in that age group but their scores aren't 3 times better.

These kinds of "tests" are basically useless, UNLESS you are comparing countries with very similar populations like Norway to Finland.