Statistics

Did you know... ?

• ONE HALF of the adults who live in Smith County read below the 8th grade level.
• ONE HALF of these adults read below the 5th grade level.
• 25% of Americans cannot address an envelope well enough to reach its destination.
• 61% of low-income families have no children's books in their homes.
• The American Medical Association found that low literacy skills increase annual health care expenditures by $73 billion.
• The military spends $70 million on basic skills remediation for recruits.
• 50% of the chronically unemployed are not functionally literate.
• 7 in 10 prisoners perform at the lowest two literacy skills levels.
• More than 40 million adults function at the lowest literacy level.
• 90 million Americans have trouble reading and/or writing.