Overall Performance of U.S. Adults

In this Issue Brief, prose literacy and document literacy scores are combined into a single literacy score measured on a scale of 0–500 points. Numeracy scores also range from 0–500. U.S. adults had an average literacy score of 269 and a score of 261 in numeracy (table 1). The United States outperformed Italy in literacy and numeracy, but was outperformed by Bermuda, Canada, Norway, and Switzerland in both skill areas.

In addition to average scores, it can also be informative to examine how well high and low performers scored in each country. Score differences between high and low performers can also help illustrate how widely performance within a country varies.

In both literacy and numeracy, adults in Bermuda, Canada, and Norway had higher scores than U.S. adults at both the high and low ends of the score distribution. The highest performers (the top 10 percent of adults) had literacy scores of 353 or higher in Bermuda, 344 or higher in Canada, and 348 or higher in Norway, compared to 333 or higher in the United States. The lowest performers (those in the bottom 10 percent) in Bermuda, Canada, and Norway also outscored their peers in the United States in both literacy and numeracy.

The difference in literacy and numeracy scores between the highest and lowest performers in Norway (approximately 114 points for literacy and 118 points for numeracy) was smaller than in the United States (where it was 132 points for literacy and 149 points for numeracy). In Bermuda and Canada, the differences between high and low achievers in literacy and numeracy were not measurably larger than the U.S. differences. In other words, although literacy scores for Bermudans, Canadians, and Norwegians on average were higher than in the United States, in Bermuda and Canada scores were spread to about the same degree as in the United States, while in Norway there was less variation in scores.

Switzerland’s low performers outscored U.S. low performers in literacy, while their high performers did not score measurably differently. Swiss adults outperformed U.S. adults throughout the distribution in numeracy, and the differences between high and low performers in literacy and numeracy were smaller than in the United States. In contrast, Italian adults scored consistently lower than U.S. adults throughout the distribution in both literacy and numeracy.

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