Earlier today a certain blog known for not crediting their sources reported that a quarter of Americans had not read a book in the past year. While that factoid was true at one point, it is now so old that it is a historical fact, not current news.
The uncredited sources for this factoid is a Pew Research Center article from September which is based on a survey conducted in January and February 2019.
So basically, 27% of Americans had not read a book in 2018. And as you would expect, the data on the non-readers corresponds to the survey subject's educational level and socioeconomic status:
Several demographic traits correlate with non-book reading, Pew Research Center surveys have found. For instance, adults with a high school diploma or less are far more likely than those with a bachelor’s or advanced degree to report not reading books in any format in the 12 months before the survey (44% vs. 8%). Adults with lower levels of educational attainment are also among the least likely to own smartphones, a device that saw a substantial increase in usage for reading e-books from 2011 to 2016. (College-educated adults are more likely to own these devices and use them to read e-books.)
Adults whose annual household income is $30,000 or less are more likely than those living in households earning $75,000 or more a year to be non-book readers (36% vs. 14%). Hispanic (40%) and black (33%) adults are more likely than whites (22%) to report not having read a book in the past 12 months. But there are differences between Hispanics born inside and outside the United States: 56% of foreign-born Hispanics report not having read a book, compared with 27% of Hispanics born in the U.S.
image by freestocks.org via Flickr
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