Why Now?

National Endownment for the Arts
To Read or Not to Read
In 2004, the National Endowment for the Arts published Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America. This detailed study showed that Americans in almost every demographic group were reading fiction, poetry, and drama—and books in general—at significantly lower rates than 10 or 20 years earlier. The declines were steepest among young adults.

More recent findings attest to the diminished role of voluntary reading in American life. These new statistics come from a variety of reliable sources, including large, nationally representative studies conducted by other federal agencies. Brought together here for the first time, the data prompt three unsettling conclusions:

• Americans are spending less time reading.

• Reading comprehension skills are eroding.

• These declines have serious civic, social, cultural, and economic implications.

Reading at Risk (PDF) is a study conducted by the National Endowment For The Arts. The study was published in June, 2004. For more information regarding this research and other NEA initiatives, please visit the National Endowment For The Arts website at www.arts.endow.gov.

The following reading and literacy statistics were taken from Statistics taken from the National Endowment For the Arts website, June 2004:

• Approximately one in five American adults is considered functionally illiterate.
• Approximately one in three Chicagoans is considered functionally illiterate.
• Illinois' literacy rate ranks a poor 34 out of the 50 states.
• The U.S. ranks 49th in literacy rates among all United Nations countries.
• A typical child in the U.S. watches 28 hours of TV a week and sees 8,000 murders by the time they finish elementary school.
• An illiterate adult earns 42% less than a high school graduate.
• Illiteracy costs the economy $225 billion annually in lost revenues, taxes and decreased industrial productivity.
• 27% of Army enlistees can't read training manuals written at the 7th grade level.
• Only 10% of the nation's population uses the local library.
• 5% of the U.S. population reads consistently; 39% of the U.S. population never reads.
• A recent report from the National Endowment For The Arts says the number of non-reading adults increased by more than 17 million between 1992 and 2002.
• Only 47% of Americans read "literature" (poems, plays, narrative fiction) in 2002 a drop of 7 points from a decade earlier.
• The number of American adults reading any book at all in 2002 fell to 57%, down from 61% a decade earlier.
• According to the non-profit Book Industry Study Group, the number of books purchased in the U.S. in 2003 fell by 23 million from the year before to 2.22 billion.
• The drop in reading was widespread: among men and women, young and old, black and white, college graduates and high school dropouts. The numbers were especially poor among adult men, of whom only 38% read literature, and Hispanics overall, for whom the percentage was 26.5%.
• The decline was especially large among the youngest people surveyed, age 18-24. Only 43% had read any literature in 2002, down from 53 percent in 1992.