Over the last several centuries there has been a concerted effort to raise literacy rates around the world

For the most part, although there is still work to be done, we've done a pretty good job

The vast majority of people on this planet know how to read and write.

While literacy has improved despite our world becoming ever more dependent upon technology

overall mathematical literacy has not improved. Learn more about numeracy or mathematical literacy on this

episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. In the fast food chain A&W was competing with the much larger fast food chain McDonald's.

One of the most popular McDonald's hamburgers was, both now and then, the quarter pounder.

A&W thought that they came up with a great idea to compete with

McDonald's quarter pounder.

They introduced a hamburger with a third pound hamperger patty instead of a

quarter pound patty for the same price.

And it beat the quarter pounder in blind taste tests.

A&W was sure that they had a winner on their hands.

However, the A&W 3rd pound burger wasn't the success that they had hoped.

A&W conducted customer surveys to find out why people didn't like the new burger.

The owner of A&W at that time, Alfred Taubman, wrote about what they found in his book,

Threshhold Resistance.

Quote, more than half of the participants in the Yanklevich focus groups questioned the price of our

burger.

Why they asked should we pay the same amount for a third of a pound of meat

as we do for a quarter pound of meat at McDonald's?

You're overcharging us.

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