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The National Literacy Institute makes the claim.

Literacy Data and its impact on the Nation

  • Illiteracy has become such a serious problem in our country that 130 million adults are now unable to read a simple story to their children
  • 21% of adults in the US are illiterate in 2022
  • 54% of adults have a literacy below 6th grade level

That seems impossible, given the demands of a modern society.

Note that this question asks about current adults, not about educating children.

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  • @Oddthinking I actually liked "literally illiterate". As an aside, it slightly alters the meaning of the question: The PIAAC definition establishes a threshold that allows participation; individuals below that threshold may still be able to read in principal (i.e., one might say they are not literally illiterate) but are not able to put the contents to work.
    – Peter - Reinstate Monica
    Commented Nov 12 at 11:47
  • skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/20739/… I still think it's a duplicate, but I didn't know I could close questions on my own, so I reopened.
    – DavePhD
    Commented Nov 12 at 12:57
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    @DavePhD It might be. Here's the question: Have things evolved in 10 years? That's a ½ a generation. (Not to mention that both question and answer references do not work or are out of date.) This maybe a question for meta.
    – pinegulf
    Commented Nov 12 at 14:14
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    @Peter-ReinstateMonica: The original claim didn't include "literally illiterate". The definition of illiteracy we should be using is that of the claimant (ideally with an explanation if that definition is misleading to lay people). That said, looking at the source, I can't see anywhere they have defined it.
    – Oddthinking ♦
    Commented Nov 12 at 23:16
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    The so-called National Literacy Institute is some sort of commercial provider of "professional development workshops" whose front page says "Discovering Our Future of Education through the Lenses of Artificial Intelligence and its potential impact on education and the wider world" (capitalization theirs). They have a blog with 3 posts of which this is one. This doesn't appear to be a notable claim.
    – benrg
    Commented Nov 13 at 2:54

2 Answers 2

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Yes and no, depends on your definition

CIA World Factbook states:

There are no universal definitions and standards of literacy.

Yes, 21% of American adults are illiterate:

The Institute of Education Sciences (IES) defines literacy

PIAAC defines literacy as “the ability to understand, evaluate, use and engage with written texts to participate in society, to achieve one’s goals, and to develop one’s knowledge and potential” (p. 61, OECD 2013).

The Institute of Education Sciences (IES) reports:

Four in five U.S. adults (79 percent) have English literacy skills sufficient to complete tasks that require comparing and contrasting information, paraphrasing, or making low-level inferences—literacy skills at level 2 or above in PIAAC (OECD 2013). In contrast, one in five U.S. adults (21 percent) has difficulty completing these tasks

No, far fewer than 21% of American adults are illiterate:

United Nations uses different definition of (il)literacy

(i) A person is literate who can with understanding both read and write a short simple statement related to his/her everyday life.
(ii) A person is functionally literate who can engage in all those activities in which literacy is required for effective functioning of his/her group and community and also for enabling him/her to continue to use reading, writing and calculation for his/her own and the community’s development.

Under this definition you get 99% by worldpopulationreview.com

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  • 11
    Ah, this makes sense. The definition of literacy used is quite broad and mixed with (other, general) cognitive skills. In my naive thinking, "illiterate" means "Latin script looks to them like Chinese script to me". For example, a "literally illiterate" person could not read station names in the subway.
    – Peter - Reinstate Monica
    Commented Nov 12 at 12:23
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    "Four in five U.S. adults (79 percent) have English" If you only consider English, that's totally changing the issue. Especially if you include Puerto Rico.
    – DavePhD
    Commented Nov 12 at 12:35
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    @DavePhD especially as the US has no official national language (despite what many people think) despite the de facto national language at federal level being English (and in some southern communities Spanish being a strong second). So I can live in the US as a Dutch person and be highly skilled in Dutch and German without knowing a word of English. I'd be functionally illiterate in English despite being fully literate in more languages than most US citizens.
    – jwenting
    Commented Nov 12 at 13:22
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    @DavePhD Puerto Rico is going to change numbers, at most, by just under 1%, as that's their share of the US population.
    – user71659
    Commented Nov 12 at 18:39
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    @pinegulf This answer really needs to be edited to mention that part about the test being based on assessments solely in English. This completely changes the answer and is likely responsible for most if not almost all of the difference between the measured numbers. As of 2023, only 78% of Americans spoke primarily English in their homes. It's more than a bit misleading to say that someone who can read and write fluently in, say, Spanish or Chinese but not English is "illiterate." "Illiterate in English" != "illiterate."
    – reirab
    Commented Nov 12 at 19:21
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The site making the claim (from the "National Literacy Institute" which appears to be a commercial entity offering courses and coaching) does not provide sources. But the numbers align with the results of the PIAAC OECD study conducted 2012-2014. The U.S. government published the U.S. results from that study. The PIAAC definition for "literacy" is functional: Can people in principle read (i.e., form words from letters); AND do they understand the text, AND can they put the contents to work. They define the minimum skills for functional literacy as literacy level 2, which includes

  • making matches between the text and information
  • paraphrasing
  • making low-level inferences.

By contrast, somebody who can only perform level 1 tasks, such as

  • read relatively short continuous, noncontinuous, or mixed texts in digital or print format to locate a single piece of information
  • enter personal information into a document
  • recognize basic vocabulary
  • determine the meaning of sentences
  • read paragraphs of text

is still illiterate according to the definition used.

I understand the usefulness of this definition, and it reflects recent changes in the assessment of math skills. But I personally would not call somebody who can read a paragraph of text and determine the meaning of a sentence illiterate.1

That somebody cannot make sense of what they read or cannot make inferences may be for any of a myriad of reasons; but they can read.

The share of people who cannot read a paragraph of text or understand a sentence is between 4% and 8%, depending on how many of the 4% of the PIAAC participants who could not be assessed "because of a language barrier or a cognitive or physical inability to be interviewed" actually cannot read.

With respect to the "demands of a modern society": Functional literacy is indeed strongly correlated with economic and social success. Many prison inmates and welfare recipients have below-par reading skills.

1 The authors of a large German literacy study acknowledged that using the word "illiteracy" for people who actually have basic reading skills is both confusing to the lay audience, impairs international cooperation and puts a stigma on that group. They use "adults of low literacy":

Der Begriff „funktionaler Analphabetismus“ gilt als stigmatisierend und als ungeeignet für die erwachsenbildnerische Praxis. Zudem hat die Erfahrung seit der LEO – Level-One Studie gezeigt, dass der Begriff missverständlich, da sehr stark erklärungsbedürftig und zudem in der internationalen Diskussion schwer anschlussfähig ist (vgl. Steuten 2014). Um diesem Umstand gerecht zu werden, verwendet LEO 2018 den Begriff „geringe Literalität“ bzw. „gering literalisierte Erwachsene“

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    As discussed in comments on the other answer, aside from the exact definition of "literacy" being used, it's also very important to note that 79% number was based on assessments solely in English, while only 78% of Americans primarily speak English at home. The original claim seems to be conflating "illiterate" with "illiterate in English," which are two very different things.
    – reirab
    Commented Nov 12 at 19:27
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    Equating literacy with simple reading is the entire point and problem. "They can read" some sentences, great, that doesn't make them literate by any reasonable use of the word, or we would just talk about reading directly.
    – Nij
    Commented Nov 12 at 23:54
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    @Nij Well, "reasonable" is in the eye of the beholder. Apart from that, we agree.
    – Peter - Reinstate Monica
    Commented Nov 13 at 0:44
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    @Nij that's right. The problem is that the specific requirements for being found literate are elusive and contextual. If a trained medical doctor with no background in law were to find themselves in a third-year law school classroom and expected to read with understanding all of the nuances of a commercial shipping contract, then they will probably experience the negative effects of illiteracy (frustration and eventually course failure) even though they could probably pass a high school or even college-level reading test.
    – Robert Columbia
    Commented Nov 13 at 3:03
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    But that's not how (functional) literacy is defined in any reasonable sense, so it's irrelevant. Being functionally literate doesn't require being perfect at all use of language in all contexts.
    – Nij
    Commented Nov 13 at 5:35

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