America's Growing Gap in Digital Job Skills

The USA is trying to remain a leader in technology and science, while at the same time it is debasing education at all levels and reducing research expenditures. This sounds to me like a recipe for failure...

I wonder how much is this due to how software is being engineered and UI&#x2F;UX problem?<p>An example being software updates on phones. When I got my parents their first android phone, the app drawer worked on swiping left&#x2F;right. Then came the change in orientation where the swipe went to up&#x2F;down. My parents were confused and routinely called me to ask how to make the phone work.<p>Just today I had an app which showed different categories on clicking tabs on top changed to swipe up and down with a small button to choose categories at the bottom.<p>These kind of changes leaves people more confused. They like to stick to older versions and hence left behind on any thing new.

<i>gender, race, and ethnicity</i><p>All of which are insignificant compared to ageism. That&#x27;s the telltale that there is no genuine skills shortage; employers are happy to overlook a large talent pool. The author of the piece even feels the need to mention both &quot;race&quot; and &quot;ethnicity&quot; to pad out the words!

Interesting article until one notices a couple points...theres the geographic metro dot plot but there&#x27;s also this statement early on?<p>&quot;(The study notes some limitations to these O*NET data, which are reported as aggregates, and not available on the micro level. This means that digitalization scores are assigned nationally, without regard to location, which could introduce potential inaccuracies at the local level.)&quot;<p>Did I miss something, does the data have metro labeling or something?<p>And finally, that last graph I&#x27;m not sure is showing much correlation. R^2 of ~.26?

Anyone know of any programs, tools, best practices, whatever for trying to improve this in areas that are being left behind?