The American National Adult Literacy Statistics are out from the year 2023 and the results are absolutely terrifying. At least 45 Million American adults, ages 16-74, are functionally ILLITERATE, reading and comprehending BELOW a fifth grade level.
It gets worse.
In 2023, twenty-eight percent (28%) of American adults scored at or below a "Level 1" literacy, indicating severe difficulty with everyday reading/comprehension tasks!
Before I go further, let me lay out what the various Levels mean. There are five levels in scoring for literacy:
Level One: In the U.S. adult literacy system (PIAAC), Level 1 means having low literacy skills, where individuals can understand short texts on familiar topics to find single pieces of information, identify basic vocabulary in sentences, but struggle with more complex or multi-step tasks, often requiring only basic print or digital materials with clear cues. This is considered a low proficiency level, often characterized by difficulty with complex sentences or large amounts of text, though individuals at the lower end of this scale can even struggle with basic sentence meaning.
Level Two: American literacy Level 2, defined by the PIAAC assessment (Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies), signifies basic literacy, where adults can read paragraph-length texts, compare information, and make straightforward inferences, but struggle with more complex, dense materials, often involving tasks like finding jury info or using a TV guide. This level shows developing skills beyond simple word recognition, allowing for some understanding and basic problem-solving, placing individuals in the "Basic" or sometimes "Intermediate" category depending on the specific scale used, says the National Coalition for Literacy.
Level three: In U.S. adult literacy (PIAAC/NAAL), Level 3 signifies an intermediate proficiency where adults can read and understand dense, lengthy, or complex texts, make inferences, and use information from documents and prose to perform everyday tasks like understanding bus schedules or explaining billing errors, essentially functioning effectively in daily life. It's considered the benchmark for full literacy, with skills above this level (Levels 4 & 5) requiring more advanced synthesis and analysis.
Level Four: In the US adult literacy framework (NAAL/PIAAC), Level 4 (Proficient) signifies the ability to read, understand, and use complex, lengthy texts to find, interpret, and synthesize information, evaluate arguments, and handle multi-step quantitative tasks, often using background knowledge, while Level 5 (Advanced) is even higher, requiring advanced reasoning and evaluation of dense, conflicting sources. While some sources combine 4/5, the core of Level 4 involves integrating subtle details and complex relationships in dense material.
Level Five: American literacy level five, based on international assessments like PIAAC, signifies the highest proficiency, where adults can search, integrate, and synthesize information across multiple complex texts, evaluate evidence-based arguments, and make high-level inferences using specialized knowledge, effectively handling demanding tasks in daily life, work, and civic engagement.
So in short, Level One is ILLITERATE, Level Two is Basic Literacy in short text situations, and Level three is the benchmark for basic literacy and getting along in life. Levels four and five are advanced and very advanced literacy.
As mentioned above, 28% of American adults are at or below Level 1.
Now, stop for just a moment, and consider the actual, real-life implications of this. If they cannot read or comprehend except for short texts on familiar topics to find single pieces of information, identify basic vocabulary in sentences, but struggle with more complex or multi-step tasks, often requiring only basic print or digital materials with clear cues, then how does the rest of their intellect function?
Twenty-nine percent (29%) of adult Americans scored at Level two.
Only 44% scored at level 3 or above. That's less than half the U.S. adult population who have basic literacy and comprehension abilities ! ! ! ! ! !
If that isn't bad enough, the National Adult Literacy Statistics show that those scoring Level One - barely able to read or comprehend -- INCREASED NINE PERCENTAGE POINTS BETWEEN 2017 AND 2023.
In 2023, only 46% of U.S. Adults, scored at Level 3 or above.
Now you know why our country and our society are falling apart. Worst of all, it seems, at least on the surface, there is no "fix" for this. How do you educate people whose lifetime reading and comprehension skills are barely able to function?
In their formative years, meaning the years when humans CAN learn the most and absorb the most, they were ruined by the people entrusted to educate them. Entire generations intellectually ruined from Grammar school onwards.
All those so-called "experts" in education . . . produced THESE results above.
In short, we now have kids graduating schools who cannot read and comprehend, being admitted to colleges who have to try to remediate these broken, ignorant, kids, but who won't fail them because that's "mean." The colleges subsequently graduate them with college degrees, turning them loose on society as if they know what they're doing . . . . and we wonder why so many things are failing on so many levels.
Worst of all, these kids come out of college, with degrees they can't even understand, and then dare to tell the rest of us how we should do things, claiming they are "experts" because . . . you know . . . their college degree proves it.
When society rebukes their lame-brained ideas, these kids get angry and decide that since they know better, the rest of us must be too stupid to change.
Thus, college graduates experience the Dunning-Kruger Effect. The Dunning-Kruger effect is a cognitive bias where people with low ability in a specific area overestimate their competence, while experts often underestimate theirs, thinking tasks are easier for everyone. Incompetent individuals lack the self-awareness (metacognition) to recognize their own mistakes, leading to inflated confidence, whereas experts see the vastness of what they don't know. This effect highlights a disconnect between perceived and actual skill, seen in everything from driving to complex subjects.
We are now living in the Kruger-Dunning United States. That's why everything is falling apart.
It will only get worse from here.
