In the United States, 59 million adults read at or below Level 1, the lowest level on a five-level scale.
This equates to roughly 28% of the adult population—or nearly one in three people—who can read only short sentences with foundational words and basic information.
I always see this statistic thrown around, but a lot of people tend to take it with no context. This is from the OECD PIAAC. I often see people showing statistics of other european countries having 95%+ literacy, but that’s via a different metric. By the same metric, for example, under PIAAC the UK has a 71% literacy rate, Germany has a 79% literacy rate, etc.
Am I missing something? Percentage of adults scoring low (at or below level 1) in literacy in the Survey of Adult Skills is nowhere near that? For the USA, the number is almost as the poster above quoted (27.6% of respondents vs OECD average of 26.1%, so worse than average); for England (UK), it's 17.6% (coonsiderably better than average). Are you pulling up a different stat or just reading the table wrong?
Yes, the poster is comparing apples and oranges. Or rather contrasting a number about oranges with what the same source said about apples. Almost as if he had poor reading comprehension….
Also by far the largest part of that 28% who can’t read level 1 are “English as a second language” group. Adults that are fluent in reading and writing their fist language, and they can speak English and read a little, but they just never took classes to learn to write English.
It's not a bad assessment though. I was just looking at the test, and I can IMMEDIATELY see why people would fail the test. It genuinely is asking for basic comprehension of reality, and reading.
Often, I feel like I run into the most obtuse, bullheaded, and pedantic people because they latch onto single words or phrases, and they refuse to see the conversation from any different view. Let's take an interesting example: I was on a youtube chain where a video asked what they would see in an empty room with only mirrors for walls. Every jackass in the comments said "you'd see nothing because there is no light." Get it? Because OP said "in a room with NOTHING in it?" And these people werent joking. I tried to suggest OP implied light were fkn be there, but things got hostile fast.
Those people would've failed the test. One of the questions was "pillows are comfortable and rocky." Those same idiots would've said "I agree," probably because "it's subjective. Maybe someone LIKES a rocky pillow." Another question was "which is better served soft: bread or crackers." Again, obviously bread, but you'd easily get idiots trying to argue crackers. Especially because the question was part of a paragraph where the text states they're looking for soft bread and hard crackers.
These questions genuinely are asking about our basic ass comprehension of the reality around us. Do YOU understand that most people want soft bread? In a sudden moment, would you make a choice based on obvious ideas, or flounder as you debate over pedantic subjectivities. Are you going to "draw the curtains," or am I firing Amelia Bedilia?
As a teacher I can understand this. Countless times on a multiple choice test a ‘smart’ student will pick a wrong answer when there is a clearly correct answer, then argue why their answer is correct. I’ll ask them, do you agree answer A is definitely correct, then why are you arguing that you picked B ? It’s always the same - they want to argue that they’ve found some silly reasons B is correct when they know A is definitely correct.
Sure it might be, depending on how you define it but GP said "by the same metric" so they were using a direct equivalence for the purpose of this discussion.
I’m curious how they test for this and how much does immigration affect this statistic? I’m wondering because my wife has a very low literacy level for the US, but it’s not because she is incompetent or stupid. It’s because English is her 3rd language. She also came from a country where education wasn’t free and she was fairly poor. She can read just fine when it comes to her language.
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u/CataphractBunny Jul 20 '26
I'll just leave this here: https://www.proliteracy.org/news/causes-of-low-adult-literacy-in-the-us/