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I really struggled hard with Algebra. My Dad was a Math major, and my younger brother inherited his his Math gene, and is a genuine fucking genius, but I was a musician, and had trouble even memorizing the multiplication tables.
I'm old now, and over my entire life, I've never said, or even thought, "I wish I'd paid more attention to Algebra." Perhaps there were times that it might have helped me, but it made so little sense to me, that I wouldn't even recognize when it would be required. Once, a friend who was good with math asked me "Didn't anyone ever explain Algebra to you using a circle?" and I told him I had no idea what he was talking about, and I still don't (I think it was a circle, I don't know, this stuff is totally alien to me).
OTOH, I ended up being self-employed, and I use BUSINESS MATH every single day. Calculating percentages, profit margins, interest rates, budgets, accounts receivable and collectible, etc. I'm really good at that type of math, and often do the work in my head as I'm driving. If I could have had that type of math in high school, it would have been helpful, and my grades would have been better without being dragged down by D's from a charitable teacher who must have realized what a hopeless Algebra dunce I am.
High school students need to be given the choice between Algebra/ Calc/ Trig, and Business Math. If a kid is on a Science/ Engineering track, then sure, let them take the Algebra and stuff. But if a kid is going to be doing most regular jobs, Business Math is going to be more useful, and is even useful in tracking your household economy. Algebra is something most people will seldom if ever use, but Business Math is something that EVERYBODY uses, every day.
Business math appears to just be algebra applied to money. The math you're using to balance your books can do so much more than that.
That's what word problems are supposed to teach you, how to apply the math. So you can critical think your way to awnsers to problems you aren't taught specifically to solve.
I do think how we teach word problems can be improved, obviously, considering the amount of people who hate them and never get it. But teaching people how to use math for only money feels like a failure to me.
It's not a failure to acknowledge that money is the thing that MOST people are going to use math for MOST of the time, for their entire lives. Making sure they come out of high school with basic financial literacy should be a priority. They usually learn to drive in high school don't they? Do they? I did, but that was the olden days.
And there's lots more than money involved with business math. There are lots of calculations that need to be made in a business, although that at some level, everything ultimately serves the bottom line.
Teaching people how to handle money wouldn't be the worst thing, unless you're a dishonest politician or businessman who wants to get their hands on everybody's money.