“Illiterate”: The Invisible Reality of Low Literacy Adults in the United States
The literacy situation in the United States is not what you believe it to be.
The literacy situation in the United States is not what you believe it to be.
Many figures state the U.S. literacy rate to be roughly 95% which, in some ways, is true. Only 4% of the U.S. population is non-literate, not meeting the criteria for level one literacy as defined by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). The rest of the population is “literate”, meaning they can, at some level, extract information from text.
But the binary of literate and non-literate simplifies a situation with many gradations. Someone may be able to read, but at a level that is too low to succeed in our reading-based world.
The NCES has its own scale of measuring literacy, which runs from one to five, with five being the most proficient and one being the least. The chart below gives population percentages in each level as well as a sample task to illustrate the skills required to be placed in a level. Data is drawn from the 2013 Program for the Assessment of Adult Competencies survey.
Level three is considered to be the minimum level of literacy necessary to function in society: working, understanding simple contracts, and filling out forms. Over half of Americans — 52% — do not meet the criteria for level three, a stark contrast to the 95% literacy rate presented in most reports.
Because of the widely held belief of near-universal literacy in the U.S., those perceived as illiterate are shamed, abused, and believed to be inherently less intelligent than those with higher literacy levels. The tweet below, from comedian Robert Shultz, implies a friend’s boyfriend is “stupid” for having difficulty with “restaurant menus [that] have a lot of words.” Shultz is seemingly incredulous, asking rhetorically if the boyfriend is totally unable to read. Though there were replies pointing out the problems with the assumption that intelligence is directly correlated with literacy, these types of jokes are commonplace and were well received by Shultz’s audience. As of the writing of this article, his tweet has 43.3K likes and 1,685 retweets.
This article does not intend to blame Schultz or any other individual for the jokes they make — he, like most people, believe the literacy rate in America and other industrialized nations to be well above 90%. This article does, however, intend to point out the systemic problem of low literacy and the effects on those who experience it.
Illiteracy is a social justice issue.
According to a 2012 Survey of Adult Skills, Black and Hispanic Americans are three to four times as likely as white Americans to have low numeracy and literacy skills. In both cases, this is because of the intergenerational aspect of literacy: children with low-literacy parents are ten times more likely to have low literacy skills than those with high parents. Because of the American history of denying an equal education to Black people, Black children are more likely to be raised in households without a high-literacy parent, and therefore they are more likely to also have low literacy.
In Hispanic households, especially immigrant households, parents are likely to speak their native language, Spanish, better than English. Even if parents are highly literate in Spanish, low English literacy will still affect their children and again, contribute to intergenerational illiteracy. The same immigrant language effect is observed in groups of other nationalities, but as immigrants from Mexico and other Latin American countries make up over half of the immigrant population, they are the most represented in data.
More than half of American adults do not have the necessary literacy to complete basic tasks of living
Another group of people who are more likely than the general population to have low literacy is, perhaps unsurprisingly, low-income individuals.
The relationship here is more difficult to tease out, however. The intergenerational literacy effect applies here, too. In addition, however, low literacy is correlated with low earnings, creating a cycle in which those with low literacy, which was essentially inherited, remain low earners across generations. 84% of unemployed Americans have low literacy levels, as do 67% of part-time employees. Many of these individuals struggle to attain employment because of their low literacy skills. Individuals in these groups are essentially trapped in un- or underemployment, contributing to the widely studied cycle of poverty.
In addition to financial damages, there are health costs to low literacy.
Individuals who read at low levels are 1.5 to 3 times as likely to have adverse health outcomes than those who read at higher levels. The study controlled for race, socioeconomic status, and other possible confounding factors, and still came to the conclusion that low literacy individuals are more likely to face poor health outcomes.
Even beginning with healthy eating, someone who cannot read is unable to nutritional information, or follow a written nutritional plan. They are unable to read prescription inserts that detail important side effects and contraindications. They cannot read printed health information given to them by a physician. They cannot research their health and have agency over it. Because of their low literacy, individuals may struggle to make healthy choices.
Low literacy individuals are almost guaranteed to have low health literacy, a type of literacy that focuses on an individual’s ability to understand and use health information. For example, while someone may know what medications they take, they may have low health literacy if they do not know why they take each medication. Higher health literacy can allow individuals to better communicate with healthcare providers and feel more control over their own health, leading to increased trust in the medical system. Higher health literacy can also enable individuals to take charge of their own health at home, and avoid going to hospitals in the first place. Though health literacy is a relatively uncommon term outside of healthcare circles, it is important to improve health outcomes and trust in the medical system in the United States.
Before we discuss attempts to improve literacy, let’s first dispel two pervasive ideas about low literacy individuals: that they are mostly unemployed and uneducated. This perception does not line up with the data: over half (60%) of low literacy individuals completed high school, and fully two-thirds are employed. People with literacy issues are not the stereotype popularly imagined: they are our neighbors, our friends, and our community members, and they face immense difficulties as a result of something that they didn’t choose. A child’s literacy is tied to their parents’ literacy level. No one can control to whom they were born.
Further, low literacy can be a result of intellectual disabilities. Again, no one chooses to be born with or develop an intellectual disability, but those individuals are twice as likely to be at a low literacy level. Lastly, low literacy individuals are, en masse, motivated to improve their skills. 42% of Level 1 literacy individuals are currently enrolled in education or training, and many more would if given the opportunity.
Low literacy is an invisible issue.
While many American adults are affected by it, low literacy makes it hard to self-advocate. Voting is difficult if not impossible: registering to vote, reading candidate platforms, and voting itself all require reading and writing skills. As they are unlikely to influence elections, politicians tend to not pay mind to adult literacy learners unless pushed to do so. As a result, while there are federal resources, they seem to be outshined by private philanthropic organizations creating literacy education programs.
Proliteracy is one such organization that provides resources for educators and helps connect adults seeking education to local resources. Proliteracy also provides factsheets and statistics on adult literacy, which helps inform the public about the largely invisible issue. The National Literacy Directory is an organization that houses a database of thousands of literacy programs across the country and is linked to by both LINCS and Proliteracy. LINCS, a federal project run by the education department, is the standout government resource for adult literacy. It provides resources for reading, math, science, job skills, navigating the naturalization process, and even attempts to address health literacy. The health literacy resources, however, are not tailored to lower-level literacy individuals and as such may not be as beneficial as they could be.
While there are resources for adults looking to improve their literacy, the statistics on literacy show that these programs are not having as much of an effect as they could be. Though specific criticisms of federal policy are beyond the scope of this article, this American Progress article discusses, in detail, various government attempts and their successes and failures. Hopefully, evidence-based models of literacy education will be helpful in increasing adult literacy.
Though this article has not proposed any new solutions to adult illiteracy, better awareness will continue the push for adult literacy programs. While the current statistics may look bleak, they are not set in stone, and it is perfectly possible for the US to assist its low literacy individuals to rapidly bring up their skills. All we need is funding, time, and a desire to help instead of scorn. The literacy situation in the US may not be what we want it to be, but we have the power to make it better.
Tori Morales (they/them) is an autistic college student writing about mental health, autism, and other topics. You can support them by using their Medium affiliate link or buying them a coffee.
If you enjoyed my article, consider following me on Twitter.
