Final signature count: 12,566

12,566 signatures toward our 50,000 goal

Despite being the largest economy in the world, a staggering 21% of adults in the U.S. are either completely or functionally illiterate. The U.S. trails significantly behind many countries with smaller economies, including Japan, the UK, Canada, all of the Scandinavian countries, and South Korea¹.

Nationwide, adult illiteracy has proved an intractable problem, linked to stubborn societal issues such as poverty and failing schools².

Low literacy individuals struggle to find employment; they settle for low-paying jobs; they fight to increase their earning power and to support their families. They under-utilize the healthcare system out of fear, or over-utilize it because they are unable to follow written instructions on prescriptions or discharge papers³.

The sad reality is, US adult literacy rates are no better than they were 25 years ago.

According to the National Adult Literacy Survey⁴, 70% of all incarcerated adults cannot read at a 4th-grade level, meaning they lack the reading skills to navigate many everyday tasks or hold down anything but lower paying jobs.

The Department of Justice states, “The link between academic failure and delinquency, violence, and crime is welded to reading failure. When inmates who left school before receiving a high school diploma where asked the main reason they dropped out of school, about one-third reported they lost interest or experienced academic difficulty⁵.

The fact is, the seeds of illiteracy are planted at a young age. A mother’s reading skill is the greatest determinant of her children’s future academic success, outweighing other factors, such as neighborhood and family income. U.S. adults with low levels of education who have parents with low levels of education are 10 times more likely to have low skills than are those who have higher-educated parents⁶.

Since the mid-1960s, the Federal Government has played a critical role in providing education services to adults with inadequate literacy skills, especially through the Adult Education Act (AEA), which supports adult literacy and basic skills education⁷.

These programs have helped millions of Americans learn the skills they need to thrive.

Sign the petition and demand increased federal support for the Adult Education Act (AEA) and adult reading programs.