92% of adults know how to read to varying level.[1]
The number, while high, is not satisfactory. Clearly, we also want adults to be functionally and not pass a super low bar of being able to read a sentence which 92% does not care to distinguish, but it is not fact true that "many of them don't even know how to read".
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_in_the_United_States