[maxerickson]

And, critically, how much are we willing to collectively sacrifice to move that percentage of people in a positive direction?

This begs the question, at least to some extent. A big lesson of modern economics is that lots of things are win-win.

For example, if you could eliminate years spent in prison by spending more on K-12 education, that looks like a big sacrifice if you don't have the prison counterfactual to compare to, but it's potentially the cheaper path.

[lazyasciiart]

There are lots of interventions that show massive returns on investment in social welfare: a recent one has been extended availability of support for teenagers aging out of foster care, that takes their outcomes from something like "percentage who have become homeless within one year of their 18th birthday" from 70% down to 30%, and similar for arrest records and pregnancy among girls.

But, sadly, many people feel morally injured by spending money to proactively help adults who should be eating their own boots or whatever, and so it is less of a sacrifice to spend 5 times the money on jailing them instead.

[relaxing]

Critically, the industries dedicated to putting people in jail and keeping them there are well-organized and politically-connected.

And the industries that could benefit from an expanded workforce are aligned with the pro-jail bloc for political gain.

[perfectritone]

Unfortunately it's not all economics. The prison system in the US exerts its power on the population using fear. The goal is to have a certain amount of people in prison, not to save money by getting them out. There are myriad ways to achieve reducing the prison population if that was the goal.