More People than ever have Limited English Skills ... Limiting their Job Prospects

Almost one in 10 adults of working age in the U.S. has limited proficiency in English, more than 2.5 times as many as in 1980, curbing their job prospects and ability to contribute to the economy.

Two-thirds of the 19.2 million people who have limited English are Spanish speakers. However, Asians and Pacific Islanders are most likely to have limited proficiency relative to their size of the overall population, according to a new report produced by the Metropolitan Policy Program of the Brookings Institution.

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Immigrant workers and their children will account for most of the growth in the U.S. labor force in the coming decades, independent projections show. Therefore, investing in English instruction is "critical to building and maintaining a skilled workforce," the study by the progressive Washington-based think tank says.

"English proficiency is a strong predictor of economic standing among immigrants, regardless of the amount of education they have attained, and it is associated with the greater academic and economic success of the workers' children," said Jill H. Wilson, the study's author.

About 45 million people in the U.S., or more than 20% of working-age adults—defined as those 16 to 64 years old—speak a language other than English at home, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. While more than half of them speak English very well, many of them struggle.

Based on data from the Census Bureau's 2012 American Community Survey, Brookings ranked U.S. metropolitan areas by the size and the share of the population that is limited English proficient and the growth in that population in recent years.

While most English-limited adults live in large metropolitan areas, traditional magnets for immigrants, their numbers have grown markedly in smaller metropolitan areas that more recently began to absorb Latin American immigrants and refugees from Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

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