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By Jasmine Laws
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The southern region of the U.S. has a lower literacy rate than states further north, data from the National Center of Education Statistics shows.
In 2024, 21 percent of adults in the U.S. were found to be illiterate, while 54 percent of adults had a literacy below a sixth grade level, according to the National Literacy Institute.
Why It Matters
The literacy rate in the U.S. appears to be decreasing, with it down nearly 10 points since 2017.
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According to data released in December by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), which is part of the Department of Education, 28 percent of adults in the U.S. ranked at the lowest levels of literacy, compared to 19 percent in 2017, according to news outlet wtrf.com.
Newsweek has contacted the National Center of Education Statistics for comment on the data.
The National Literary Institute also reportedthat low levels of literacy costs the country up to $2.2 trillion a year with 50 percent of those unemployed between ages 16 and 21 not considered to be functionally literate.
What To Know
The data released by the National Center of Education Statistics showed that Louisiana, New Mexico, Mississippi and Texas had the lowest rates of literacy in the U.S., with an average score under 254.
Meanwhile, Minnesota and New Hampshire had the highest rates, with scores over 278.
The scores are calculated as averages that fall between a range of 0 to 500, made up of five levels based on different literacy skills.
A state with a score between 226 to 275 are ranked as Level 2, suggesting that the average person is able to make matches between a given text and information, such as paraphrasing or making low-level inferences.
States with scores above 275, which included North Dakota, Alaska, Vermont, Minnesota and New Hampshire, are Level 3, meaning that they can identify rhetorical structures and evaluate pieces of information.
The data shows that the South has lower literacy rates than other areas, and the 10 counties with the highest percentage of their populations at or below a Level 1 literacy are in Texas, primarily along the U.S.-Mexican border, according to APM Research Lab.
In those regions, the research lab reported that the high populations of immigrants, whose first language is not English, could be behind the lower rate of literacy.
The lab also reported that adults who have poor reading skills tend to live in communities that have fewer resources, and few libraries and bookstores. They may also not have much access to internet, meaning that the opportunity to read is reduced.
According to keytostudy.com, educational inequality, policy failures, and a lack of focus on early literacy are also reasons for the differences in literacy rate across the country.
The overall average literacy score in the U.S. is similar that of Germany and the U.K., and America is more literate than countries like France, Italy, Poland, and Spain, according to ncesc.com.
Per the outlet, the literacy rate in the U.S. is lower than countries like Australia, Canada, and Japan.
What People Are Saying
Vice President of The Education Trust, Allison Rose Socol, Ph.D, wrote in a blog post: "That any child, let alone the majority of children, goes to school without being taught to read is deeply concerning — and also completely preventable. There are five widely accepted components that are essential to reading: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. Decades of research shows that when students receive explicit and systematic instruction across all of these domains, they will learn to read. And when students are given access to texts with rich, diverse characters and cultures, seeing people like themselves fully represented in school materials, they will become more engaged readers."
What's Next
Vivek Ramaswamy, who President-elect Donald Trump has chosen to head his new Department of Government Efficiency, posted on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter, to say that Trump's plan to "dismantle the Department of Education" will be the first step to fixing low literacy rates in the U.S. after the data was released in December.
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