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- One in three adults cannot read this sentence. (National Assessment of Adult Literacy, 2003)
- 85% of all juveniles who interface with the juvenile court system are functionally illiterate. (National Assessment of Adult Literacy, 2003)
- People with low functional health literacy are less likely to understand written and oral information given by physicians, nurses, pharmacists, and insurers. (Center for Health Care Strategies,
www.chcs.org)
- Illiteracy and crime are closely related. The Department of Justice states, “The link between academic failure and delinquency, violence, and crime is welded to reading failure.” Over 70% of inmates in America’s prisons cannot read above a fourth grade level. (www.begintoread.com)
- Reading is absolutely fundamental. It’s almost trite to say that. But in our society, the inability to be fluent consigns children to failure in school and consigns adults to the lowest strata of job and life opportunities. (Dr. Grover Whitehurst, Assistant Secretary, U.S. Department of Education - Director, Institute of Education Sciences; Children of the Code interview, 2008)
- Adults with ability to perform challenging and complex reading tasks made an average yearly salary of $50,700 in 2003. That is $28,000 more than those who lacked basic skills. (National Assessment of Adult Literacy, 2003)
- Workers 18 and over with a bachelor's degree earn an average of $51,206 a year, while those with a high school diploma earn $27,915; those without a high school diploma average $18,734. (U.S. Census Bureau, 2005)
- Literacy programs in Texas are only serving 3.6% of the 3.8 million in need of adult basic education services. (Texas LEARNS, April 2005)
- A higher percentage of men (by a margin of 4 percentage points) than women have Below Basic health literacy. (National Assessment of Adult Literacy, 2003)
- 93 million American adults, or 45% of the adult population, have limited reading, writing, and math skills. (National Assessment of Adult Literacy, 2003)
- A rise in of 1% in literacy scores leads to a 2.5% rise in labor productivity and a 1.5% rise in GDP per person. (The Economist, August 28, 2004)
- The health care industry estimates $73 billion per year of unnecessary health care expenses attributable to poor literacy. (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Statistics, 2004)
- Six of the ten fastest growing occupations listed by the US Department of labor in its employment projections through 2012 require an associate's or bachelor's degree. (U.S. Department of Labor Statistics, 2004)
- Medication errors -- many as the result of misread or misunderstood prescription labels -- are the most common medical mistakes causing up to 7,000 deaths each year. (2005 White House Conference on Aging)
- An estimated 771 million adults, one-fifth of the world’s population, do not have the ability to read and write, with understanding, a short, simple sentence about one’s own life. (UNESCO, 2006)
- The percentage of adults age 25 or older who reported having read a novel, short story, play, or poem in the past 12 months decreased between 1982 and 2002. (National Center for Education Statistics, 2005)
- In the 2003 Adult Literacy and Lifeskills Survey, the United States outperformed Italy in literacy and numeracy, but was outperformed by Bermuda, Canada, Norway, and Switzerland in both skill areas. (National Center for Education Statistics, 2005)
- There are 3.8 million adults in Texas without a high school diploma. (Texas LEARNS, 2005)
- Texas ranks 47 out 50 states, in terms of English literacy levels. (U.S. Department of Education)
- Texas has 6.5 million residents who speak a language other than English at home, almost double the national percentage, composing 38.6% of the Texas population. (Texas LEARNS, 2005)
- An estimated 11 million adults in the U.S. are nonliterate in English. (National Assessment of Adult Literacy, 2003)
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