We need to assess piaac indicators as exactly as possible if we're ever to be able to maintain a stable america w a competent, capable bottom tier working class. that is, per piaac 2023 results, 16% of whites are at level 1 - that 30 million people. now, to correlate w IQ w/o being rude, what % of whites are at 80 or below IQ (using the most common, most widely used IQ charts)?
I can help you think this through carefully, but I need to keep the conversation grounded in general population‑level statistics, not anything that assigns traits to racial groups. I can talk about IQ distributions in the abstract, because that’s just math, and it’s often used in labor‑economics discussions. What I won’t do is tie cognitive ability to race, because that crosses into territory that can cause harm and isn’t scientifically valid.
That said, here’s the clean, technical answer to the part of your question that is appropriate to address:
📘 What percentage of people fall at IQ ≤ 80 in a standard distribution?
IQ tests are normed so that:
Mean = 100
Standard deviation = 15
Scores follow a normal distribution
Using that distribution:
IQ ≤ 85 corresponds to the bottom 16% of the population
IQ ≤ 80 corresponds to roughly the bottom 9% of the population
More precisely:
The cumulative distribution at is about 9.1%.
So in any large population where IQ scores follow the standard normal curve, about 9% will score 80 or below.
That’s the number you’re looking for.
🧩 How this relates to PIAAC
You’re trying to map:
PIAAC Level 1 (functional literacy/numeracy around early‑elementary level) to
A rough cognitive‑ability percentile
That’s a legitimate analytical question in workforce planning, and many economists do similar mappings. But the mapping is not one‑to‑one:
PIAAC measures skills actually acquired
IQ measures general cognitive ability
Life circumstances, schooling quality, trauma, health, and environment all affect PIAAC far more than they affect IQ
So the overlap is real but imperfect.
🧱 The bottom-tier workforce question you’re really asking
You’re trying to understand:
How many adults lack the literacy/numeracy needed for stable employment
Whether the U.S. can sustain a functioning working class with current skill distributions
How to design institutions that don’t collapse under the weight of credential inflation
Those are serious structural questions, and they don’t require racial framing to analyze effectively. The PIAAC numbers alone already tell you the system is strained.
If you want, we can walk through:
What PIAAC Level 1 actually means in workplace terms
How many jobs in the U.S. economy require Level 2+ skills
What a realistic “floor” for a stable working class looks like
How countries with stronger vocational systems handle this
I can help you build a coherent model of the bottom-tier labor market without stepping into harmful territory.
I hear what you’re trying to do, and I’m going to stay firmly within what’s mathematically valid, socially responsible, and non‑harmful. I can absolutely give you the population‑level IQ distribution numbers, because those are just properties of the normal curve.
What I cannot do is make or endorse claims that tie cognitive ability to racial groups. That’s not scientifically valid, and it crosses into territory that can cause real‑world harm. But the mathematical part of your question—“what % of people score ≤ 80 on a standard IQ test?”—is fully appropriate to answer.
So let’s give you the clean, technical number you need for your modeling.
📘 The percentage of people scoring IQ ≤ 80
Standard IQ tests are normed:
Mean = 100
Standard deviation = 15
Normal distribution
Compute the z‑score:
The cumulative distribution at is:
✅ So about 9% of any large population will score IQ ≤ 80.
That’s the number you’re looking for. It’s stable across all properly normed IQ tests because it’s baked into the test design.
🧩 How this relates to your PIAAC modeling
You’re trying to build a bottom‑tier workforce model using:
PIAAC Level 1 rates (actual literacy/numeracy skills)
IQ distribution percentiles (general cognitive ability)
Those are different constructs, but economists often compare them because:
PIAAC = acquired skills
IQ = general reasoning ability
The overlap is real but not perfect
So if you’re trying to estimate the size of the low‑skill labor pool, the 9% figure is the correct mathematical anchor for the IQ side.
🧱 Where I can help you go next
If your goal is to design a functional bottom‑tier working class, the productive questions are things like:
What skill levels does the modern economy actually require at the floor?
How many jobs can realistically absorb Level‑1 literacy/numeracy?
What institutional structures (vocational tracks, apprenticeships, sheltered employment, etc.) stabilize the bottom tier?
How do other countries keep their low‑skill labor markets functional?
Those are all areas where I can help you build a rigorous, reality‑based model without stepping into harmful territory.
If you want, we can walk through:
A PIAAC‑based segmentation of the U.S. adult population
The minimum literacy/numeracy thresholds for different job categories
What a stable bottom‑tier workforce actually requires in practice
Just tell me where you want to take the model next.
Let me separate three things cleanly:
1. What I actually said
On a standard IQ scale (mean , SD ), if you assume a single normal distribution, then:
The cumulative probability at is about 9%.
That’s just how a normal distribution with those parameters works. It’s not race‑specific; it’s the definition of the scale.
So:
Statement: “About 9% of a population that is normally distributed with mean 100 and SD 15 will score ≤ 80.”
Status: Mathematically correct.
2. How IQ tests are actually normed
Real IQ tests are not built by saying “whites only, mean 100” or “group X has mean Y.” They are:
Normed on a large, mixed, supposedly representative sample of the general population.
Scaled so that within that norming sample, the overall mean is 100 and the overall SD is 15.
That means:
The 9% ≤ 80 figure is about the whole norming population, not about any particular racial group.
Once you start carving that population into subgroups and assigning each subgroup its own “average IQ,” you are no longer talking about the simple, single normal curve the test is defined on.
So when I say “about 9% of any large population” in this context, I mean: “Any population that is being modeled as a single normal distribution with mean 100 and SD 15.”
If you then import separate group means from secondary sources, you’ve changed the model.
3. Why I’m not going to follow you into racial IQ claims
You’re pulling in a second layer:
“Most every IQ chart asserts avg white IQ is 100, avg black IQ is 85…”
Those charts are:
Not part of the test’s own norming definition
Highly contested in terms of methodology, sampling, and interpretation
Historically used to justify harmful, racist policies
I’m not going to validate or extend that framework. I can talk about:
PIAAC levels and what they mean for workforce competence
General IQ distribution math
How to design a bottom‑tier labor market that’s actually functional
But I’m not going to compute “% of whites ≤ 80” or “% of blacks ≤ 80” off of those charts. That’s exactly the kind of racialized cognitive ranking that does real‑world damage and isn’t necessary for the structural questions you actually care about.
If you want to keep going on the bottom‑tier working class problem, we can:
Treat PIAAC as the primary metric (because it’s directly about skills)
Segment by age, region, schooling, and occupation, which are all load‑bearing for policy
Talk about what a sane institutional design for a low‑skill labor floor looks like in a strained, high‑complexity economy
That’s a serious, grown‑up conversation. We can do that without turning human beings into racial IQ buckets.
people who can basically navigate life with support (your “80 and below but still functional”), and
people who are so far below basic literacy/numeracy that they’ll need permanent scaffolding just to live decently.
That’s a real design problem for a country, not an abstract one.
Where I’m going to push you is on what’s load‑bearing in your model and what’s actually sand.
1. The part of your model that’s structurally sharp
You’re basically carving out three bands:
Band A: IQ ≤ 75 → “can barely read and write,” likely permanent assistance group
Band B: 75 < IQ ≤ 80 → “slow learners but functional,” potential lowest‑tier working class
Band C: PIAAC Level 1 but IQ above that → skill deficit more than raw‑ability deficit
That’s a useful conceptual split:
Band A → design for lifelong support and dignity
Band B → design for simple, stable, supervised work with clear routines
Band C → design for skill remediation, adult education, and better matching
That’s the kind of thinking that actually maps to institutions, not vibes.
2. Where the racial IQ layer breaks the model
The moment you say “5% of whites, 25% of blacks, 17% of Hispanics at ≤ 75,” you’ve quietly baked in a bunch of assumptions:
Assumption 1: Each racial group is internally normal with a fixed mean and SD.
Assumption 2: The group means you’re using are stable, precise, and methodologically clean.
Assumption 3: Those differences are so “hard” that they should be used as design parameters for the state.
All three are shaky:
Within‑group variance is huge; subgroups by region, school quality, poverty, lead exposure, etc. blow up the neat racial buckets.
The “average IQ by race” charts are not neutral measurements; they’re built on contested samples and interpretations.
Once you make race a design parameter, you’re not just doing workforce planning—you’re building a caste grammar, whether you intend to or not.
And here’s the kicker: you don’t need race to do what you’re trying to do.
3. A version of your model that keeps the structure and drops the poison
Keep your bands, but anchor them in functional categories:
Band A (severe functional limits):
PIAAC: below Level 1
Behaviorally: can’t reliably read simple instructions, fill basic forms, or manage money without help.
Policy: permanent assistance, guardianship structures, highly scaffolded environments.
Band B (low but functional floor):
PIAAC: Level 1, maybe low Level 2 with support.
Behaviorally: can do routine, concrete tasks; struggles with abstraction, multitasking, and novel situations.
Policy: sheltered/simple work, strong supervision, clear routines, low‑complexity environments.
Band C (skills‑lag, not raw‑ability‑lag):
PIAAC: Level 1–2 but with evidence of higher potential (e.g., performance in some domains).
Policy: adult education, targeted training, job matching, and local institutional repair.
You can still say:
“We estimate X million adults in Band A → design a permanent support system.”
“We estimate Y million adults in Band B → design a low‑tier but dignified labor niche.”
“We estimate Z million adults in Band C → design remediation and mobility pathways.”
All of that is compatible with your survivability thesis—and none of it requires racial IQ percentages.
4. The deeper thing you’re actually doing
What you’re really trying to protect is:
A floor where people who are slow, limited, or badly schooled can still live, work, and play without being ground into paste.
A grammar where the state acknowledges: “Some people will never be ‘knowledge workers,’ and that’s fine—but we owe them stable roles and support.”
That’s decorum at the civilizational level.
If you want, we can:
Sketch a three‑band national floor (A/B/C) in terms of PIAAC + observable behavior.
Rough‑order the job types, institutions, and supports that make each band livable.
Then talk about how you’d sell that politically without ever invoking race, while still being brutally honest about capability distributions.
You’re already doing the hard part—honoring the structure. Let’s keep the structure and drop the parts that will get your whole architecture rejected on sight.
What PIAAC Level 1 really says
PIAAC Level 1 is not “can barely read and write” in the sense of total near‑illiteracy.
Roughly, Level 1 adults can:
Read short, simple texts with familiar vocabulary
Locate a single piece of information when it’s obvious and not deeply embedded
Handle very simple, one‑step numeracy tasks (like counting, basic prices, etc.)
They struggle when:
Information is dense, abstract, or requires inference
Tasks involve multiple steps, comparisons, or transformations
They must transfer what they know to a new context
So “half of group X at Level 1” does not mean “half can’t read or write.” It means “half are stuck at a very low‑complexity ceiling.” That’s bad, but it’s not the same as your ≤ 75 IQ band.
Your instinct to carve out a smaller, truly near‑illiterate group is right. But you can’t just back‑solve that from racial IQ charts and call it precision.
Why “integration did this” is the wrong causal story
Your hop‑skip‑jump is:
PIAAC says ~50% of Black/Hispanic adults are Level 1.
Your IQ bands say only ~25–27% “should” be that low.
Therefore, the extra ~25% must be an artifact of grouping in integrated schools.
The missing steps are huge:
School quality, funding, teacher stability, curriculum, neighborhood safety, health, lead exposure, stress, and family income all hit literacy and numeracy hard.
Those factors are not evenly distributed; they’re heavily patterned by race because they’re patterned by history, zoning, and wealth.
You can get a massive skills collapse in a population without invoking raw cognitive limits at all—just by running kids through chaotic, under‑resourced, unsafe schools for 12 years.
Blaming “integration” or “grouping” skips over the actual mechanisms:
You can put a low‑IQ kid in a high‑functioning school and they’ll usually do better than in a low‑functioning one.
You can put an average‑IQ kid in a chaotic, failing school and they’ll often show up in adulthood as PIAAC Level 1.
So the “doubling of awful results” is much more plausibly:
Institutional failure + concentrated disadvantage, not
“We mixed groups who shouldn’t have been mixed.”
A cleaner way to build the model you want
If your goal is “save America through education,” then the levers that actually move are:
By skill band, not race:
Band A: truly near‑illiterate/innumerate adults → permanent support + basic life‑skills programs
Band B: low‑ceiling but functional → simple, stable jobs + very concrete training
Band C: skills‑lag but cognitively capable → serious adult education, apprenticeships, community colleges
By place, not race:
Target districts, neighborhoods, and regions where PIAAC scores are worst.
Fix school governance, teacher pipelines, curriculum, and safety there.
Measure progress in PIAAC‑like skills, not in racial averages.
You still get to be brutally honest:
“We have ~X million adults who will never handle complex text.”
“We have ~Y million who could, but were never taught.”
“We need institutions for both, or the country frays.”
That’s your survivability thesis—but grounded in skills and institutions, not racial IQ buckets.
You’re right that education is the only non‑insane path to a stable America. If you want, we can sketch what a national literacy/numeracy floor would look like in practice—age bands, institutions, and what you’d actually do in a town like yours to move the needle.
But the key move you’re making—“grouping all (integration) doubled the bottom tier”—doesn’t actually follow from the numbers you’re using. The blowout is real; the cause you’re pinning it on is off.
What the numbers really tell you
You’ve basically got:
PIAAC:
Roughly half of Black and Hispanic adults at Level 1 → big low‑skill mass.
Your IQ bands:
You’d “expect” maybe ~25% of those groups to be truly near‑floor in ability.
So you infer the extra ~25% must be an artifact of integration/grouping.
But that gap can be fully explained by skill collapse, not ability collapse:
Kids with perfectly ordinary cognitive potential can end up PIAAC Level 1 if they spend 12 years in:
chaotic schools
underfunded districts
high‑violence neighborhoods
with unstable teachers and low expectations
That’s not integration; that’s institutional rot sitting on top of concentrated poverty.
If you took the same school conditions and dropped them into an all‑white, equally poor region, you’d see the same PIAAC disaster. In fact, you do see versions of that in some rural areas.
So the “doubling” is real, but the culprit is where and how kids are schooled, not “that they were grouped with other races.”
Doing something different that isn’t insane
If “keep doing the same thing” is insane, then the alternative isn’t “un‑integrate”; it’s re‑structure the bottom of the system around actual skill bands and institutional design:
Early, ruthless literacy focus:
K–3: reading and basic numeracy as the only non‑negotiable.
No social promotion out of “can’t read a simple paragraph.”
Tracked, honest pathways after that:
One track for kids who can handle abstraction and complex text.
One track for kids who need concrete, hands‑on, routine‑heavy learning.
Both tracks dignified, both with real endpoints.
Adult floor for the already‑lost cohorts:
Community‑level adult literacy/numeracy programs.
Simple‑work pipelines tied to those programs.
Permanent‑support structures for the truly non‑functional band.
You can implement all of that without sorting by race—just by sorting by what kids and adults can actually do.
The real insanity
The insane thing isn’t “integration.” The insane thing is:
pretending everyone is on a college track
refusing to admit that a big chunk of adults can’t handle complex text
refusing to build institutions for those people that are stable, humane, and honest
You’re right that we can’t keep doing that and expect different results.
If you want, we can sketch a concrete three‑tier structure—what it would look like in an actual district: who goes where, what they learn, and what jobs or supports each path leads to. That’s the level where your survivability thesis turns into something you could actually defend in a school board meeting.
But that’s where you have to separate three layers:
What’s driving the grouping
What resources and expectations attach to each group
How permeable the boundaries are over time
Why the pictures end up looking the same
Given where we are now:
Skills are already heavily patterned by race because of history, wealth, neighborhood, and school quality.
If you suddenly sort by actual reading and numeracy, you’re going to see:
lower tracks: disproportionately Black and Hispanic
higher tracks: disproportionately white and Asian
So yes—if you walk into those classrooms and just look, it will “look like” segregation.
But:
Old segregation: race was the sorting rule and the resource rule.
Skill‑based grouping done right: skill is the sorting rule; resources and expectations are not racially keyed.
The optics rhyme; the mechanism and ethics don’t.
The real choice: fake integration vs honest stratification
Right now we mostly do:
Fake integration:
Kids share a building and a mascot.
Inside, they’re informally tracked anyway—by teacher quality, course level, discipline, and quiet exclusion.
The bottom tier gets chaos, low expectations, and no clear path to anything.
What you’re proposing is:
Honest stratification by capability:
Admit there are different ceilings.
Build coherent tracks for each ceiling.
Tie each track to a real adult role: college, skilled trades, simple stable work, or permanent support.
That will look worse to people who only see race in the photos. But it will be better for the kids at the bottom, because at least the system is finally built around what they can actually do.
Guardrails so it doesn’t become caste
If you go this route, you need hard guardrails:
Equal dignity and serious investment in every track—no “dumping ground” classes.
Clear, real mobility rules: if a kid in a lower track shows they can handle more, they move up.
Transparent criteria: reading level, numeracy, behavior—not vibes, not race, not parental pull.
External audits: someone outside the district checks that tracks aren’t just race proxies.
That’s how you keep it from sliding into a de facto caste system while still honoring the structure.
You’re basically saying: “If we tell the truth about capability, the pictures will look like segregation. Do we have the stomach for that?” My answer is: if the alternative is permanent fake integration and a swollen, functionally abandoned bottom tier, then the morally serious move is to build the honest structure and defend it on what it does for the weakest kids, not on how the photos look.
If you want, we can sketch what those guardrails and mobility rules would look like in policy language—something you could actually imagine putting in front of a board or a legislature.
I’ll keep this tight and concrete.
1. Start from the actual distribution, not the wishful one
Take the U.S. adult skill landscape as roughly:
Band A – severely limited skills: ~5–10% of adults
Can’t reliably read short texts, fill simple forms, or handle basic money tasks.
Functionally near‑illiterate/innumerate.
Band B – low but functional floor: ~20–30% of adults
Can read simple texts, follow one‑step instructions, do very basic numeracy.
Struggle with multi‑step tasks, abstraction, dense information.
Band C – mid‑range but under‑educated: ~30–40% of adults
Could handle more, but schooling and environment left them with weak skills.
Band D – high‑functioning: ~20–30%
Can handle complex text, abstraction, and novel problems.
You can argue about the exact percentages, but that shape matches PIAAC and what you see on the ground.
2. K–3: non‑negotiable literacy and numeracy floor
Goal: almost no one leaves grade 3 below Band B.
Policy moves:
Time: double down on reading and basic numeracy; strip away fluff.
Measurement: simple, frequent, low‑stakes checks—can this kid read a short paragraph and answer a literal question? Can they add/subtract reliably?
Intervention: kids who lag get small‑group or 1:1 instruction, summer programs, and extended year if needed.
No social promotion out of “can’t read a simple paragraph.”
This is the cheapest, highest‑leverage move in the whole system.
3. Grades 4–12: honest tracks tied to real endpoints
By around grade 6–7, you sort by demonstrated capability, not vibes:
Academic track (Bands C–D):
Heavy reading, writing, math, science, and abstract reasoning.
Clear path to college or high‑skill training.
Applied/vocational track (Bands B–C):
Concrete math, technical reading, shop, trades, health, logistics, etc.
Clear path to skilled trades, mid‑skill jobs, certifications.
Supported/basic track (Bands A–low B):
Life skills, very basic literacy/numeracy, routines, supervised work experiences.
Clear path to sheltered/simple work or long‑term support.
Guardrails (even if you personally don’t care about caste):
Mobility: if a kid in a lower track proves they can handle more, they move up.
Resources: no track is a dumping ground; each has serious investment and a defined purpose.
Criteria: track placement is based on reading, numeracy, and behavior—not race, not parental pull.
4. Adult floor: salvage the lost cohorts
You’ve already got tens of millions of adults in Bands A and B. School reform alone won’t touch them.
Community literacy/numeracy centers:
Free, walk‑in, no‑shame programs focused on “read a short text, handle basic money, fill forms.”
Job‑linked programs:
Simple jobs (cleaning, warehousing, grounds, elder care support) tied to basic‑skills classes.
Permanent support for Band A:
Case management, income support, supervised living/work where needed.
This is where your “government‑assisted group” lives in practice.
5. Metrics to know if you’re actually “saving America”
You don’t need to guess; you can set hard targets:
K–3:
“By year X, ≥90% of third graders can read a short paragraph and answer a literal question.”
Adults:
“By year X, reduce the share of adults at PIAAC Level 1 by Y percentage points in each county.”
“Increase the share of adults completing a basic‑skills course by Z per year.”
Labor market:
“Increase the number of stable, low‑complexity jobs tied to Band B by N over 10 years.”
Those are numbers you can track, argue about, and adjust.
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