ADULT LITERACY FUNDING
Forty-four percent of adult education funding comes from federal sources. Forty-five percent comes from state sources. Ten percent comes from local sources. One percent of adult education funding comes from tuition.
Funding for adult education and English language instruction has declined by 17 percent from 2002 to 2012 when adjusted for inflation.
State funding used to provide approximately $3.50 for every $1 of federal funding. This has shrunk and become more unreliable.
An additional $160 million could clear reported waiting lists and would provide about $1,000 for each of the 160,000 people on waiting lists.N
All states but North Dakota have waiting lists. The average number of months on a waiting list has doubled since 2008.
Federal literacy and basic education programs only reach 3 million (3 percent) of those in need of adult literacy services.
Foreign assistance–including support for global literacy–equals less than 1 percent of the annual U.S. budget yet greatly contributes to saving lives, stabilizing countries, and opening markets. Programs supported by U.S. foreign assistance are linked to global prosperity, help reduce military interventions, and increase our national security.
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CORRECTIONS
Forty-one percent of inmates have not completed high school. All federal prisons, nine out of ten state and private prisons, and 6 out of 10 local prisons provide education programs to inmates. GED preparation courses are the most prevalent.
More than half of inmates report taking an educational program while incarcerated.
People of color in prison are less likely than whites to have a high school diploma or GED certificate.
1.5 million people with the lowest levels of literacy are incarcerated.
States that raise high school graduation rates experience significant declines in incarceration rates.
A one percent increase in the high school completion rate of all men ages 20 to 60 would save the U.S. as much as $1.4 billion per year in reduced costs from crime.
Those who participate in correctional education classes have lower rates of re-arrest, re-conviction, and re-incarceration than those who do not participate.
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DIGITAL LITERACY
Among American adults with a college degree, 97 percent use the internet. Among American adults with no high school diploma, only 61 percent use the internet.
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EDUCATION
Adult men and women in the United States who have fewer than twelve years of education have life expectancies not much better than those of all adults in the 1950s and 1960s, while their highly educated counterparts have experienced a dramatic increase in life expectancy.
8.1 million adults dropped out of school before 8th grade, making GED attainment more difficult.
Since 1983, more than 10 million Americans reached the 12th grade without having learned to read at a basic level. In the same period, more than 6 million Americans dropped out of high school altogether.
Children who have not developed some basic literacy skills by the time they enter school are 3-4 times more likely to drop out in later years.
High school dropouts from the class of 2006-07 will cost the United States $329 billion in lost wages, taxes, and productivity over their lifetimes.
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FAMILY LITERACY
Children of parents who had not completed high school scored lower in vocabulary assessments than children of parents with a high school degree or equivalent.
Parents with a high school diploma or GED certificate engage more in early childhood education activities with their children.
Only 27 percent of parents with below basic literacy levels report reading to their children five or more times a week.
Parents with a high school diploma or a GED certificate are 11 percent more likely to assist their children with homework than those who did not complete high school.
A mother's level of reading skill was the greatest determinant of her child's academic success.
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FINANCE
Among people with low levels of financial literacy, 29 percent of men and 32 percent of women are likely to engage in problematic credit card behavior.
More than half (56 percent) of American adults admit they do not have a budget, including more than 1 in 5 (22 percent) who say they don't have a good idea of how much they spend on housing, food, and entertainment.
The proportion of adults who do not pay all of their bills on time has increased from 28 percent in 2011 to 33 percent in 2012–that is one-third of American adults, or more than 77 million Americans, who do not pay all of their bills on time.
Nearly two in five Americans (39 percent) carry credit card debt from month to month. Compared to 2011, American adults are now more likely to have applied and been rejected for a new credit card.
Compared to 2010 and 2011, American adults are now significantly more likely to feel there are circumstances which may justify defaulting on a mortgage. Specifically, Americans are now more likely to think it's acceptable to default on a mortgage if the borrower can no longer afford the monthly payment or needs to relocate.
Four in five American adults (80 percent) admit they could benefit from additional advice and answers to everyday financial questions from a professional.
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HEALTH
Only about 12 percent of Americans have the skills necessary to navigate the health care system.
Numeric and print literacy are associated with quality of life and asthma control, suggesting that intervention around literacy needs of patients may improve asthma outcomes.
Poor health literacy among Latino parents is associated with a poor understanding of the proper use of antibiotics, particularly for upper respiratory infections.
One source estimates the cost of low health literacy in the U.S. at between $106 billion and $238 billion annually.
Older Americans and minority groups who struggle with low health literacy are more likely to struggle with poor health.
Between 75 million and 87 million people in the United States have limited understanding of health issues, making it difficult for them to communicate with their doctors or comprehend treatment regimens.
Adults with low health literacy go to the emergency room more often than adults with higher health literacy skills. They are also less likely to get flu shots, more likely to delay or forgo mammograms, and are more likely to suffer from heart failure.
More than one in two adults can't properly read a drug label.
Older adults are three times more likely to have below basic health literacy skills than adults ages 16 to 49.
The share of working-age adults with less than a high school diploma who did not have health insurance rose to 43 percent in 2006, up from 35 percent in 1993.
Pre-teen girls with low literacy are 2.5 more likely to bear children during their teenage years than their peers with higher literacy.
Low levels of health literacy are a contributing factor in fewer colorectal cancer screenings among minority patients in the United States.
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IMMIGRATION
About 2 million immigrants come to the U.S. each year. About 50 percent of them have low literacy levels and lack high school education and English language skills, severely limiting their access to jobs and job training, college, and citizenship.
According to the 2000 Census, fluent English-speaking immigrants earn nearly double that of non-English speaking workers and have substantially lower unemployment rates.
Foreign-born workers contribute 40 percent to the labor force growth in advanced economies.
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INTERNATIONAL
A 1 percent increase in average literacy rates yields a 1.5 percent permanent increase in the GDP.
Approximately 26 percent of the world's adult population is non-literate.
Women make up two-thirds of all non-literates.
Ninety-eight percent of all non-literates live in developing countries.
In the least developed countries, the overall illiteracy rate is 49 percent.
Fifty-two percent of all non-literates live in India and China.
Africa as a continent has a literacy rate of less than 60 percent.
In Sub-Saharan Africa since 1980, primary school enrollment has declined, going from 58 percent to 50 percent.
In all developing countries, the percentage of children aged 6-11 not attending school is 15 percent. In the least developed countries, it is 45 percent.
Per capita income averages about $600 in countries with a literacy rate lower than 55 percent.
The more formal schooling a mother gets, the better off her children's health will be. Educated women get prenatal care, boil their water, and take sick kids to doctors. When a mother is educated, illness in her family decreases, and survival increases.
In Mexico, mothers with more formal schooling responded more frequently by talking and looking back when their 10- and 15-month-olds babbled or looked at them. Toddlers whose mothers talked to them more at 15 months scored higher on a language development test.
An average of only one to three years of schooling for a woman reduces early childhood mortality by 10 percent.
Researchers in Tasmania found a link between low iodine levels in pregnant women and subsequent low literacy rates in their children.
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POVERTY
Single mothers who lack a high school degree are much more likely to be on welfare than women who have a high school degree. Those with a high school degree are 24 percent less likely to be on welfare than those who are high school dropouts.
Improved education results in potential savings in public assistance costs–welfare, food stamps, and public housing–of between $7.9 and $10.8 billion.
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WORKFORCE
Those with less than a high school diploma were more than three times more likely to be unemployed in December 2012 as those with a bachelor's degree or higher.
Minimum wage workers increased wages by 18 to 25 percent within 18 months of exiting an adult education program.
By 2018, one million new jobs that require more than a high school diploma but less than a four year degree will be available. These jobs will account for 39 percent of job openings in the United States labor market. Sixty-one percent of American employers say it is difficult to find qualified workers to fill vacancies.
If only half of the dropouts from the class of 2008 had managed to graduate, it would have equaled:
- $4.1 billion in additional earnings
- $2.8 billion in spending
- $1.1 billion in investments
The additional spending and investments would have generated approximately 30,000 new jobs.
Each high school dropout costs the United States economy about $260,000 in lost earnings, taxes, and productivity over his or her lifetime.
Fifty percent of jobs created by 2018 will require a post-secondary degree or credential.
American employers spend more than $125.9 billion annually on training, including remedial reading, writing, and math skills.
By 2018, only 10 percent of jobs will be open to those who fail to complete high school. Only 28 percent will be open to those with only a high school diploma.
Students with at least some postsecondary education earn about $473,000 more than their less-educated peers over the course of a lifetime.
Forty years ago, 38.1 percent of the U.S. labor force had no education beyond high school and another 36.1 percent had not completed high school. By 2006, 9.8 percent of the labor force had attained less than a high school education.
Median weekly earnings are nearly 2.5 times more for people with college degrees than for those who have not completed high school.
Women with low literacy are twice as likely as men to be in the lowest earnings category of $300 a week or less.
Women with high document literacy are 94 percent more likely than women with low document literacy to make between $650 and $1,149 per week and 353 percent more likely to make between $1,150 and $1,949 per week.
Most material safety data sheets used in industry are written at a college reading level, making communications around workplace safety difficult; the problem is compounded when workers do not speak English well or at all.
Literacy difficulties reportedly reduce a worker's expected wage by 5 percent; women usually are impacted more by literacy difficulties in the workplace.
By 2020, there will be a potential surplus of 90 million to 95 million low-skill workers around the world. In other words, in developed economies, there will be many more workers without a college education than employers will need.
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