21% of adults in the US are illiterate in 2024.

[IrishBubbaLiberal]

https://www.thenationalliteracyinstitute.com/post/literacy-statistics-2024-2025-where-we-are-now

The capacity to read and write, commonly known as literacy, stands out as a pivotal determinant in shaping an individual's career trajectory. Individuals with literacy skills have access to a broad spectrum of career possibilities, including highly skilled and well-paying positions. Conversely, those lacking literacy face severely restricted options, with even entry-level, low-skilled jobs posing challenges to secure.

Globally, the overall literacy rate stands at a commendable level. For individuals aged 15 and above, the combined literacy rate for both genders is 86.3%. Males in this age group exhibit a literacy rate of 90%, with females closely trailing at 82.7%. Notably, substantial variations exist between countries. Developed nations consistently boast adult literacy rates of 96% or higher, while the least developed countries struggle with an average literacy rate of just 65%. Accurate cross-country comparisons of literacy rates face challenges due to two primary factors: irregular reporting practices among countries, and divergent definitions of what constitutes literacy.


On average, 79% of U.S. adults nationwide are literate in 2024.
21% of adults in the US are illiterate in 2024.
54% of adults have a literacy below a 6th-grade level (20% are below 5th-grade level).
Low levels of literacy costs the US up to 2.2 trillion per year.
34% of adults lacking literacy proficiency were born outside the US.
Massachusetts was the state with the highest rate of child literacy.
New Mexico was the state with the lowest child literacy rate.
New Hampshire was the state with the highest percentage of adults considered literate.

The state with the lowest adult literacy rate was California.


Where does the US rank in literacy?
The US ranks 36th in literacy.

————

— Crypte von Riegan (@crypte.bsky.social) 2025-03-30T18:41:20.178Z

[Irish_Dem]

1. Democracy depends upon an informed, educated citizenry.

[Attilatheblond]

5. Business also depends on an educated citizenry, and that's one reason manufacturing won't be back bigly in the US

Basic communication skills, particularly in written communication, seems totally beyond a huge portion of the population, even college students. How can a nation survive, let alone thrive, when more and more of the population can't understand or participate in communications?

[Irish_Dem]

15. A friend of mine was a manager at a large Asian car manufacturing plant in Tennessee.

The factory was just built and he was transferred from a northern midwestern state
with the same company to set up the new TN plant.

He was shocked to learn that the people hired in TN could not read the written materials
about how to do their jobs.

The managers had to make the manuals with mostly pictures.
And had to paint reminders on the floor, like where to put their hands and feet when on the factory line.

[Passages]

55. Horrifying and a clear sign of decay within a society.

[Irish_Dem]

16. The billionaires are foolish. They made their money with an educated workforce.

Now they support Trump who is ruining education in the US even more.

[Attilatheblond]

23. Thinking some of them like having to 'import' talent. It gives them power over workers if they can threaten deportation

[Irish_Dem]

31. Good point. Indentured servants.

[misanthrope]

42. I'm not so sure that ethos holds complete sway these days

What American capitalism desires is people just smart enough to make money but still gullible enough to be convinced to spend that money unwisely.

[WhiteTara]

2. tsf loves the poorly educated.

This must make him ecstatic.

[Henry203]

3. And we wonder why Trump was elected.

[chicoescuela]

6. he is among the 21%

[Attilatheblond]

9. Commenter on FB said that all the people in the Hands Off protests were 'ponds' paid & bussed in by Soros.

Betting that person, in the Red Southwest, also whines at immigrants who speak Spanish as their primary language. Yeah, US bigots who barely function in English want to rid the nation of bi-lingual people with brownish skin.

We the People have become We the willfully ignorant people and that is why the GOP has a strangle hold on power.

[thucythucy]

19. What is a "pond"--

aside from a small body of water?

What was this person trying to say?

This illiteracy extends beyond reading skills to basic knowledge about the political process as well.

I had a discussion, before the election, with a younger person who wouldn't vote for Harris because Biden didn't immediately enact universal single payer health care as soon as he was elected. I tried to explain that presidents can't do that, that legislation has to be passed by Congress. Didn't matter. "He still should have done it."

I have no idea how to get through to people like that.

[Attilatheblond]

20. Pretty sure he meant 'pawns'. Wonder how many 'dull normals' out there had hearing problems as kids

and didn't learn well because that issue was never addressed in medical care or the educational help they needed. We knew a child with a sever hearing problem whose father was an audiologist! Bad parenting expresses in many ways.

[thucythucy]

21. "Pawns."

Okay, that makes sense.

And yeah, hearing is definitely an issue for lots of kids.

But then even if you hear a word incorrectly, if you come across it in your reading you should be able to come close to the correct spelling.

I often run into the opposite problem. There are words I'm familiar with from my reading, but when it comes time to say them out loud I sometimes struggle with the proper pronunciation.

Anyway, thanks for clearing that up for me.

Best wishes.

[Attilatheblond]

24. Reading? Magas?

And I fully understand the problem of know many words from reading, but not always sure of how to pronounce. Some of us read more words than discuss them.

[Wingus Dingus]

22. I see this all the time across the internet, actually--

people who use words they have never read, only heard--so they spell them phonetically. That explains "ponds". And my perennial favorite, "marshall law".

[thucythucy]

47. Not to forget:

"Gazpacho police."

[Wingus Dingus]

48. LOL. I actually saw someone mangle "Gestapo" a couple weeks ago right here on DU.

[Kid Berwyn]

29. "Mongo pond 2?"

[Jit423]

4. And 51% of US voters are stupid. nt

[Buckeyeblue]

7. So if we take out English as a second language (ESL) it's about 40%

For adults who read at a 6th grade or below level. It would be interesting to see this broken down into age groups. It would interesting to see if technology has impacted literacy rates.

I would also say audio books have impacted literacy rates. Reading a book is much different than listening to a book. Different parts of the brain are used.

[Big Blue Marble]

10. Due you have data on that?

My sister who has a tenth grade education. She had to drop out do the death of our mother
and a broken family, She has literally educated herself with audiobooks. If you spoke.to her,
you would think she had a degree.
`

[Buckeyeblue]

34. You cannot equate intelligence to literary

You can be quite intelligent and not be a good reader, or even be illiterate. Reading is a learned skill that has to practiced. Listening is not reading. Completely different skill.

[misanthrope]

44. As someone who has worked in journalism for decades, this is easy to believe

Last edited Fri Apr 11, 2025, 03:27 AM - Edit history (3)

We are frequently instructed to dumb down our writing for readers.

I recall being taken to task by a superior in an editorial meeting once. At the time, she was trying to say I was being pretentious in my language selection, although she later came to realize I write as I speak.

"I mean look at this word, 'crepuscular,'" she griped in reading from my copy. "Who the fuck even knows what that means?"

Slowly, the chief photographer and film critic (an NYU grad) raised their hands. Their faces showed puzzlement that anyone wouldn't know the word.

"Whatever," the editor said in frustration and threw down the paper she was holding.

By the way, that same editor would go on to earn national awards for her columns that are frequently written at about a middle school level.

[Attilatheblond]

45. Back in early days of W Bush administration and the Iraq war, I read a scary fact about the Army.

The US Army said it had to drop the reading level of it's most basic training materials due to the % of recruits who could not read at the level the materials were written at. They dropped it to an 8th grade level back then. Now, it's gone lower.

Failure to educate results in the failure of a country.

[misanthrope]

50. Try this sometime: Take an average news article

and run its copy through a site that will assess the grade level at which it is written. It can be depressing.

[JI7]

52. People can and should look it up. Isn't that a way of learning ?

And looking it up is easier now than it has ever been with many examples.

[misanthrope]

53. Exactly what I thought.

Learning is now bad, I guess.

[Passages]

57. Informative post, thank you.

[Ping Tung]

8. Whenever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government;

Whenever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights.  

Thomas Jefferson

[Oopsie Daisy]

11. I can believe it.

[SheltieLover]

12. Just read article statingb75% of Memphis kids in k-12 schools cannot read at grade level

Guessing illiteracy is much higher in shitbole red states. Just guessing by the ignorance I see on a daily basis in this gawd forsaken region.

This also explains why people depend on the teevee for their "news..."

[Sanity Claws]

13. Trump loves the uneducated

[NNadir]

14. If true it's shocking but not entirely surprising. More important than mere...

...literacy is the ability to think critically about what one reads, that is how to interpret in terms of accuracy of the statements about sources and the quality of the sources themselves.

Beyond that is the issue of selection bias, hearing only what one wants to hear, reading only what one wants to read.

[IrishBubbaLiberal]

25. My grandfather born in Bohemia about 1885, only 5th grade education BUT....

My grandfather was born in Bohemia in about 1885,
and he immigrated to USA in the early 1900s at the age of 19
,,, As I remember.

Only a 5th grade education, BUT he was extremely intelligent.

Spoke numerous languages
.
Fluent Czech, German, French, Polish
And enough Russian, some Italian

And English

[NNadir]

27. The most classic cases of profound autodidacticism are found...

...in American history, notably Benjamin Franklin (who I consider to be the inventor of the United States) and more famously the man who saved it, Abraham Lincoln.

Neither had as much formal schooling as your impressive grandfather.

Conversely I know and have met many people holding Ph.D.s who are fools.

[eppur_se_muova]

37. How many people have you known with degrees from "Christian" schools like Liberty University ?

Ai yi yi.

If you've never met one, it's an experience not to be envied.

(Not all religiously-affiliated schools fall in that special category.)

[NNadir]

41. I can't say I've had the displeasure. This said, I always keep an open mind when it comes to institutions...

...which decidedly has limits.

My own institution has a much better reputation than it did when I went there; although there were future and past Nobel Laureates (2) on the faculty.

My son's Masters thesis advisor told him to not choose the institution, but rather his advisor, with which I concurred.

He was interviewed at MIT, but didn't like what he heard, and blew the institution off. Berkeley offered to fly him out for a tour; he refused to go. He has a great advisor now, fully funded, prominent enough to be called regularly (at least until the recent fall of the United States) to consult with the DOE, but he's not at an institution that would knock anyone's socks off if mentioned.

I once trained a guy at an industrial research job with a Ph.D. from an institution in your home state, Alabama, the football school. He was a pretty decent chemist, although I had to explain to him what needed to be done - he was not much at generating independent thought - but once explained, he executed competently, understanding what he was doing and why.

This said, he was a religious fundamentalist, something I occasionally mocked. (I wouldn't get away with that now.) He was a nice guy though. I liked him personally. He had a troubled background. His father murdered his mother, so he deserved some slack I guess. (I didn't know that when I met and trained him.)

I've actually known two pretty decent chemists whose life revolved around reading the Bible. Neither of them accepted the obvious reality of evolution. I mean, that's molecular biology. How does one do that? I couldn't understand how that worked, but they could do chemistry, run reactions and analyze the results.

People compartmentalize I guess.

[Mosby]

17. If you look at a map of literacy rates

You will notice much higher levels of illiteracy on our southern border.

New Mexico is the worst state, followed by TX.

[Aristus]

18. Make a correction for Trump supporters only, and that number will close in very close to 100%.

I've never seen so many abominably (and criminally) stupid people in my life. They make George W. Bush's supporters look like Rhodes scholars.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

26. Many countries tRump & Vance call shithole countries have a higher literacy rate. . . . nt

[elocs]

28. I can remember learning to read here in western WI when I was 7 in 1959 & it was life changing.

We lived just a few blocks from the main library and I would check out books in the morning, go to get more in the afternoon. It didn't take long until I had advanced to 6th grade books. So being able to read and write shaped my life.
Even my dad who was born and raised in rural Mississippi went to grade school until he knew how to read and write.

So the US is 36th in the world in literacy. How sad, but I'm sure it pleases Trump that 21% of our population is illiterate because it makes his evil work easier.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

33. I learned to read age 6 in Utica, NY at

St. Francis de Sales Catholic school. It was right next to the Utica Public Library -- a Carnegie-endowed library, as everyone was well aware of. Once I could read, I'd go to the library after school, and simply take a later bus home.

And I likewise read everything I could reasonably understand.

At the time their science fiction books were in their own room. Some of the librarians didn't think little girls should be reading science fiction, and would chase me out or refuse to check out the books. This was 1955-57. The s-f of the era was quite tame.

[-misanthroptimist]

32. 21% of adults in the US are illiterate in 2024.

And the other half are innumerate.

[CTyankee]

36. Yeah, that's me, innumerate. I was always bad at math...

[-misanthroptimist]

49. Yes, but like me, you understand your limitations...

...and don't argue with those who know more on their subject. We ask...and hopefully learn.

[CTyankee]

54. It is embarrassing. I CAN do simple stuff if I have pencil and paper.

AND, I got straight A's in English!

[eppur_se_muova]

38. Good one ! nt

[Polybius]

35. "34% of adults lacking literacy proficiency were born outside the US"

Living in NY, I've only met two adults in my lifetime that couldn't read. Both were from Guatemala. I helped them get a basic understanding of literature, and they went on to develop basic reading skills.

[progressoid]

43. I met two in 2019 as a poll watcher

Both were native born guys in their 60s. They registered to vote for the first time just so they could vote for Trump.

Because they couldn't read, two poll workers (one from each party) had to read the ballot to them. Now we have electronic machines that will aid the illiterate in voting.

I've met a lot of other people who were functionally illiterate but never like these two guys. I don't know how they make it through life. I assume their family members take care of anything that requires reading.

[Tribetime]

39. This includes Drumph nt

[Hassler]

46. The venn diagram of illiterates and MAGAts

Would form one circle.

[Karasu]

51. Considering the quality of all the social media comments I've read over the last decade, I'm not the LEAST bit surprised

by this.

It's also a huge reason why we got here, and why this administration is so confident in its ability to get away with everything it's been doing.

[Passages]

56. It is much worse than some may realize.

The Elite College Students Who Can't Read Books

The Atlantic
https://www.theatlantic.com › archive › 2024/11 › the-e...
Oct 1, 2024 — The Columbia instructors who determine the Lit Hum curriculum decided to trim the reading list for the current school year. (It had been growing ...
The Atlantic said 'elite' college students 'can't read books. ...

Standardized testing is one culprit, another "achievement " from the GW Bush era.

[peggysue2]

58. This is not new

I worked for Literacy America back in the early 90's. The percentage at that time was 20% of the population could not read or write beyond a 3rd or 4th grade level. Many couldn't read at all faking proficiency, a work-around that takes a lot of energy and cleverness.

I worked with one gentleman, a 40-something blue collar worker, whose daughter had gifted him his first grand baby. He wanted to be able to read to her like a 'normal' grand dad.

It was an eye-opener.

I worked with the man for several months but he was clearly frustrated because reading takes work and frankly sight reading (in my estimation) is a terrible way to teach reading skills particularly with an adult who has little to no experience with even the alphabet, let alone the sound those squiggly symbols represent. After about 5 months of small triumphs, he quit our weekly sessions. His wife was sick, money was drying up, his truck broke down . . . life intruded.

Reading was left in the dust.

A sad situation. For someone like myself, tragic, because I cannot imagine life without reading or writing. More importantly, illiteracy makes people vulnerable to every crank who wants to fill your ears with their take, their opinion and theory on the way of the world, large and small, as well as being incapable of understanding contracts, road signs, safety precautions on the job, etc. The list goes on and on.

BTW, I doubt the percentage of illiteracy has risen a mere 1 percent over the past 30+ years. I suspect the percentage is far worse.