It's bigger than you may think



More than 1.1 million, or one-third, of the state’s 3.2 million workers do not have the skills required to perform in the state’s rapidly changing economy and need Adult Basic Education (ABE) services. (MassINC, New Skills for a New Economy, 2000)
  • 667,000 workers have a high school credential but still lack basic math, literacy, language and analytic skills to perform in the typical 21st-century workplace. 
  • 280,000 are high school drop-outs who lack necessary skills.  
  • 195,000 are immigrants with limited English speaking skills who need to learn to speak English.  
The consequences of poor literacy skills for individuals, families, communities and the state are great.  

Families headed by adults without a high school diploma suffer severe economic consequences. (MassINC report, The State of the American Dream in MA, 2002) 
  • Since 1979, earnings of full-time, year-round workers without high school diplomas decreased by 27% while full-time workers with a high school diploma gained 1.6%.  
  • 21.7% of families headed by high school drop-outs are poor.  
  • 55% of families headed by single women who are high school drop-outs are poor.  

The best indicator of a child’s future success in school is the educational level of the parents. 
  • Mothers who are enrolled in ABE programs spend more time with their children talking about school, helping with homework, going to school activities and meeting with teachers, all of which are essential for a child’s success in school. (National Center for Family Literacy) 
  • Children in 114,000 Massachusetts families have a parent who cannot read aloud to them. (Massachusetts Family Literacy Consortium) 
  • Children in 264,000 Massachusetts families have parents who can read at a basic level but have difficulty helping their children with homework. (Massachusetts Family Literacy Consortium)
Civic and community participation suffer when adults do not have sufficient literacy skills. 
  • Adults with low literacy skills are half as likely as their more educated neighbors to vote. (National Adult Literacy Survey, 1993)  
Adults suffer adverse health outcomes as a result of low literacy skills. 
  • Low literacy is associated with several adverse health outcomes, including low health knowledge, increased incidence of chronic illness, poorer intermediate disease markers, and less than optimal use of preventive health services.  (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Literacy and Health Outcomes, 2004)
Incarceration and recidivism rates are high among adults who do not have sufficient literacy skills.
  • 68%of the incarcerated adults and youth in Massachusetts have literacy levels below the 8th grade. (National Adult Literacy Survey, 1993; The Policy Information Center of Educational Testing Service)  
  • Inmates with at least two years of college education have only a 10% re-arrest rate, compared to a national rate of 60%.  
The demand for ABE services is far greater than the services available.  
  • Over 40% of the adults who try to enroll in ABE services each year cannot enroll because there aren't adequate resources to fund needed programs in the state. (Mass. Dept. of Elementary & Secondary Education, Sept. 2007) 
  • Approximately 24,000 adults are currently enrolled in ABE programs funded by the Massachusetts of Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.  
  • Some 20,425 adults are currently on waiting lists for ABE programs funded by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education because there aren’t adequate resources to fund needed programs in the state. (Mass. Dept. of Elementary and Secondary Education, Sept. 2008) 
  • Waiting lists vary from two to eight months for ABE, and from three months to two years for English for speakers of other languages (ESOL). 
-- With thanks to the Massachusetts Coalition for Adult Education, which provided these statistics on its 2010 fact sheet