Many have argued for the importance of numeracy, yet little is known about the opportunities for numeracy available to people in their daily lives. In this study, characteristics of rational numbers in magazines written for children, teenagers, and adults were analyzed and compared. Analysis indicated that difficult mathematical concepts that appear in the media such as fractions, percents, and averages are much more prevalent in adults' magazines than in those written for children and teenagers. Adults are often presented with rational numbers that are related to each other. Numbers in teenagers' texts do not appear to provide a transition to those found in adults' texts, despite the fact that through formal schooling teenagers have encountered all the mathematical concepts that are frequently found in adults' texts. Implications for preparing students for the numeracy demands of everyday life are discussed. An appendix contains the coding scheme used in the study. Contains 27 references. (Author/MKR)