What is the illiteracy rate in the US 2023?

US Literacy Rates This means that 21%, or about 43 million adults, have low literacy skills, bordering on illiteracy. These low literacy levels have various impacts on the wider nation, and can negatively affect the U.S. economy due to the loss of employment opportunities and workforce productivity.

What is the United States literacy rate 2023?

The current US literacy rate is 79%. New Hampshire has the highest literacy rate of 94.2%. California has the lowest literacy rate of only 76.9%. 68% of US 4th-graders are below the optimal reading level proficiency.

What percentage of US is illiterate?

Nationwide, on average, 79% of U.S. adults are literate in 2022. 21% of adults in the US are illiterate in 2022. 54% of adults have a literacy below sixth-grade level. 21% of Americans 18 and older are illiterate in 2022.

How illiteracy is the US?

How many people in the US have low levels of literacy? Twenty-one percent, or 43 million US adults, find it difficult to compare and contrast information, paraphrase, or make low-level inferences, and, according to the PIAAC survey, have low literacy skills.

Are US literacy rates declining?

According to McKinsey & Company, U.S. students lost the equivalent of nearly half a school year in reading instruction due to the pandemic. In 2022, reading scores dropped to levels that we haven't seen since 2005.

Inside America’s literacy crisis and efforts to change how kids learn to read | ABCNL

Why is US literacy rate so low?

The burden of poverty places significant constraints on individuals' educational opportunities. Limited access to books, educational resources, and enrichment activities can hinder literacy development, perpetuating the cycle of low literacy rates within families and communities.

Why is literacy falling?

November 2, 2022

While California's literacy crisis certainly predates the pandemic, with less than half of California children reading at grade level back in 2019, the fallout of the pandemic, the devastating impact of school closures and remote learning, has sent test scores plummeting further.

Why is US illiteracy so high?

Hispanics, older people, and incarcerated people are more likely to be low literate than other US adults. Major factors influencing literacy development include education, socioeconomic status, learning English as a second language, learning disabilities, and crime.

What percent of Americans can't read?

Nationwide, on average, 79% of U.S. adults are literate in 2022. 21% of adults in the US are illiterate in 2022. 54% of adults have a literacy below sixth-grade level. 21% of Americans 18 and older are illiterate in 2022.

Do 54% of Americans read below 6th grade level?

This appears to be true in the United States. “About 130 million adults in the U.S. have low literacy skills according to a Gallup analysis of data from the U.S. Department of Education. This means more than half of Americans between the ages of 16 and 74 (54%) read below the equivalent of a sixth-grade level.”

Which state has lowest literacy rate?

Bihar is the least literate state in India with a literacy rate of 63.82%.

What percent of high school graduates are illiterate?

According to a recent study conducted by the U.S. Department of Education, 32 million of American adults are illiterate, 21 percent read below a 5th grade level, and 19 percent of high school graduates are functionally illiterate, which means they can't read well enough to manage daily living and perform tasks required ...

How many Americans are digitally illiterate?

About 16 percent of U.S. adults are not digitally literate, compared to 23 percent of adults internationally. The percentage of U.S. adults who are not digitally literate is not measurably different from the percentages in England/Northern Ireland (UK), Flanders (Belgium), Canada, and Germany.

What is America's literacy rate 2024?

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, about four out of five U.S. adults (79%) have medium to high English literacy skills.

How many students can t read?

Even were that to be the case, the below Basic Level figures still yield the disturbing information that approximately four out of ten fourth-grade students lack the ability to read. Biennial testing through NAEP consistently shows that two thirds of U.S. children are unable to read with proficiency.

Which country has the lowest literacy rate 2023?

State of Literacy Around the World

Burkina Faso (38%), Niger (19%) and South Sudan (32%) are the countries with the lowest literacy (CIA World Factbook).

What state has the highest illiteracy rate?

The states with the lowest literacy rates are New Mexico, California, Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Nevada, New York, Alabama, Florida and Georgia.

What is considered illiterate?

The difference between literate and illiterate people is explicit here: illiterates had never attended school and are unable to read or write even single words while literates can (Reis and Castro-Caldas, 1997).

Do 54% of adults have a literacy below 6th grade level?

130 million Americans—54% of adults between the ages of 16 and 74 years old—lack proficiency in literacy, essentially reading below the equivalent of a sixth-grade level. Often, counties with the lowest literacy rates are the same areas that experience poor health, poverty, and low economic mobility.

What percentage of China is illiterate?

Literacy Rate in China (2018-2021, %)

The literacy rate reached 99.83% in 2021. Between 2015 to 2021, the literacy rate of China grew by 0.106%. On a year-on-year basis, the literacy rate increased by 0.018% in 2021. Literacy is defined by the percentage of the literate population of a particular age group.

Why so many American kids are struggling to read?

In short, children raised in poverty, those with limited proficiency in English, those from homes where the parents' reading levels and practices are low, and those with speech, language, and hearing handicaps are at increased risk of reading failure.

How bad is illiteracy?

Children who have low literacy are more likely to get bad grades, have more school absences, and display behavioral issues. For children in school, poor literacy can make students feel incompetent, which can result in low self-esteem and isolation.

Is illiteracy getting worse?

1, and makes up one component of “Learning Poverty” (the other component being the share of children out of school). Out of 31 countries and territories for which PIRLS data is comparable between 2016 and 2021, 22 countries (or 71%) show that in 2021 more children were below minimum reading proficiency than in 2016.

Are we in a literacy crisis?

There is currently a literacy crisis happening in the U.S., one that disproportionately affects students of color, and that cannot be ignored. Literacy is one of the major civil rights issues of our time, and our children's future — and our nation's democracy — depends on us addressing it now.

Is literacy linked to poverty?

Of adults with the lowest literacy levels, 43 percent live in poverty, and 70% of adult welfare recipients have low literacy levels. There is a clear correlation between more education and higher earnings, and between higher educational scores and higher earnings.