I think if our students, if our high school students — if all of the American citizens — knew about probability and statistics, we wouldn’t be in the economic mess that we’re in today

Benjamin links statistical literacy to civic and economic well-being. The claim is that many large-scale financial failures and policy mistakes are enabled by widespread misunderstanding of risk, uncertainty, and incentives—e.g., confusing short-term trends with long-term probabilities, underestimating rare-but-catastrophic events, or accepting misleading averages and forecasts. By singling out high school students and “all American citizens,” he frames probability and statistics not as specialist tools but as basic public knowledge necessary for evaluating loans, investments, insurance, and political claims. The quote’s force lies in its moral: innumeracy is not merely an educational gap; it can become a systemic vulnerability with real economic consequences.