60% of Americans read below a sixth-grade level.

Judge as of 2025-02-22 against the best available national estimate of US adult literacy expressed as a reading grade level (e.g., analyses of PIAAC or NAAL data). The claim is about 60% of American adults. True: an authoritative estimate puts the share of US adults reading below a sixth-grade level at 55-65%. Mostly true: the estimate is 50-54% or 66-70%. Mixed: the estimate is 40-49%. Mostly false: the 60% figure rests on a different measure stated as a sixth-grade reading level (e.g., the share below PIAAC Level 3 proficiency without a grade-level mapping), or on a narrower population stated as all Americans, or the best grade-level estimate is 30-39%. False: authoritative data put the share well below that, under 30%.

Set before the research began.

1. E1 Do More Than Half of Americans Read Below 6th-Grade Level? Snopes · 2 August 2022

   “It found that 130 million adults in the country have low literacy skills, meaning that more than half (54%) of Americans between the ages of 16 and 74 read below the equivalent of a sixth-grade level, according to a piece published in 2022 by APM Research Lab.”

2. E2 Do More Than Half of Americans Read Below 6th-Grade Level? Snopes · 2 August 2022

   “Furthermore, it's entirely possible that the 54% figure has changed — either for better or worse — in the two years since it was published.”

3. E3 PIAAC Results U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics · 2024

   “Between 2017 and 2023, there were increases in the percentages of adults performing at the lowest proficiency level (Level 1 or below) in both literacy and numeracy: in literacy this percentage increased from 19 to 28 percent and in numeracy from 29 to 34 percent.”

4. E4 Adult Literacy in the United States U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics · July 2019

   “In contrast, one in five U.S. adults (21 percent) has difficulty completing these tasks (figure 1).”

An APM Research Lab analysis, reported by Snopes, estimates that 54% of US adults aged 16 to 74 read below the equivalent of a sixth-grade level (E1). The criteria place this in the 50-54% band, which is mostly true. Snopes notes the figure may have changed since publication (E2). NCES's 2023 PIAAC results show more adults at the lowest literacy level (E3), but that is a proficiency level with no grade-level mapping, so it does not replace the 54% estimate.