This quiz of basic American Civic Literacy is a sobering test of how much US citizens know about their government.
71% of Americans failed the test (less than 60% right). Less than 1% of the test takers scored above 90. How well do you know how our government was established and functions?
I’m proud to say that I missed only one question (32/33, or about 97%), but I’m sure I wouldn’t have done nearly as well if I hadn’t been teaching a US Citizenship class for the past 5 years.
The statistics show pretty similar grades among liberals and conservatives, men and women. The biggest difference is between low and high income. People making over $75,000/year averaged 55%, while those making less than $30,000/year averaged 40%. However, both those grades are failing. Whites averaged a little better than other races, men a little better than women, Republicans a little better than Democrats. But every group failed the test.
What does this mean for our country? How can we trust voters to make reasonable choices? And politicians didn’t do even as well as the average American. How can we trust them to run our government?
How well do you understand our government? Are you “civically literate”?