U.S. Census Bureau Finds Adult Reading on the Rise
Apparently, the U.S. Census Bureau does more than just count the American population. The Bureau also asks adults 18 and older if they have read at least one novel, short story, poem or play in the previous 12 months. This question was added in 1982, and has been the source of National Endowment for the Arts constant reports that Americans are reading less and less.
In 1982, 56.9 percent of respondents said that they had read something in the past year. From then, this rate has steadily decreased to 46.7 percent in 2002. But now, for the first time in 25 years, the number of Americans that read is on the rise.
The 2008 Census found that 50.2 percent of adults chose to read something for fun during the year. The number may still be only about half of all U.S. adults, but, with hope, this percentage will continue to rise.
The graphic shown was created by the New York Times for their piece about these statistics. Click on the image to read the Times’ Fiction Reading Increases for Adults.
January 14th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
[...] blog Genre Fiction just wrote about the U.S. census saying more Americans are reading - sounds like more Americans [...]