74.1 million people in the United States, 23% of everyone age 5 and older, spoke a language other than English at home in 2024 (Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2024 1-year estimates). In the European Union, 59% of residents can hold a conversation in at least one foreign language (European Commission, Eurobarometer Europeans and their languages 2024), and in Canada 18.0% of the population can converse in both English and French (Statistics Canada, 2021 Census). The labor-market payoff is far less tidy than the headcount: peer-reviewed estimates of the bilingual wage premium run from a 2%-3% gain to a small penalty, depending on which languages and which workers are measured. We aggregated data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the Migration Policy Institute, Eurostat, Statistics Canada, the UK Office for National Statistics, the Australian Bureau of Statistics, UNESCO, Pew Research Center, and peer-reviewed labor economics. The same population drives demand in adjacent areas we track, including hospital interpreter services and language access and the bilingual and ESL teacher shortage.
TL;DR
- 74.1 million US residents age 5+ (23%) spoke a language other than English at home in 2024 (Census Bureau ACS 2024 1-year, table C16001).
- Spanish accounts for about 44.9 million of them, followed by Chinese at 3.7 million and Tagalog at 1.9 million (USAFacts, ACS 2024 tabulation).
- 28.9 million people in the US speak English less than “very well”, and immigrants are about 81% of that group (Migration Policy Institute, ACS 2024 tabulation).
- 59% of EU residents can converse in at least one foreign language, rising to 79% among those aged 15 to 24 (European Commission Eurobarometer 2024).
- 25.3% of EU adults aged 25 to 64 know no foreign language at all (Eurostat Adult Education Survey 2022).
- 18.0% of Canadians can converse in English and French: 46.4% in Quebec, 9.5% elsewhere (Statistics Canada, 2021 Census).
- 5.1 million people in England and Wales (8.9%) have a main language other than English (ONS Census 2021).
- 5.8 million Australians (22.8%) use a language other than English at home (Australian Bureau of Statistics, Census 2021).
- The bilingual wage premium for US college graduates was estimated at 2%-3% (Saiz and Zoido, Review of Economics and Statistics 2005).
- 9 out of 10 US employers rely on employees with skills in languages other than English (ACTFL Making Languages Our Business 2019).
- 7.1 million US children ages 0 to 5, one-third of all young children, are dual language learners (Migration Policy Institute 2025).
- 40% of people worldwide lack education in a language they speak and understand fluently (UNESCO, Languages matter 2025).
1. How Many Americans Speak a Language Other Than English at Home
The US multilingual population has tripled in two generations without changing the country’s default. The number of people speaking a language other than English at home grew from 23.1 million in 1980 to 67.8 million in 2019, a 194.0% increase, while the total population grew 46.9% (Census Bureau, Language Use in the United States: 2019, published 2022). The 2024 American Community Survey puts the figure at about 74.1 million, and yet roughly 77% of residents still speak only English at home.
Concentration is the real story. One language, Spanish, makes up about 61% of all non-English home use (Migration Policy Institute, ACS 2024 tabulation), and four states (California, Texas, Florida and New York) hold more than half of the people who speak a non-English language at home (USAFacts, ACS 2024 tabulation). The long tail is very long: the Census Bureau’s detailed tables cover over 500 individual languages and language groups, but only 11 of the 42 groups in the standard ACS tabulation exceed 1 million home speakers.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| People age 5+ speaking a language other than English at home, 2024 | 74.1 million (23%) | Census Bureau ACS 2024 1-year, table C16001 |
| People age 5+ speaking only English at home, 2024 | 247.7 million of 321.7 million | Census Bureau ACS 2024 1-year, table C16001 |
| Spanish speakers at home, 2024 | 44.9 million | USAFacts (ACS 2024 tabulation) |
| Chinese (incl. Mandarin and Cantonese) and Tagalog speakers, 2024 | 3.7 million and 1.9 million | Census Bureau ACS 2024 1-year, table C16001 |
| Vietnamese and Arabic speakers, 2024 | 1.60 million and 1.50 million | Migration Policy Institute, Frequently Requested Statistics (ACS 2024) |
| Non-English home speakers, 1980 vs 2019 | 23.1 million vs 67.8 million (+194.0%) | Census Bureau, Language Use in the United States: 2019 (2022) |
| Highest and lowest state share, 2024 | California 45.3%, West Virginia 2.8% | USAFacts (ACS 2024 tabulation) |
| Languages and language groups in the detailed tables | Over 500 | Census Bureau, 2017-2021 ACS Language Use Tables (2025) |
Context note: speaking a language at home is not the same as being foreign-born. In 2019, 55% of Spanish speakers in the US were native-born, compared with 22.0% of Chinese speakers and 12.7% of Tagalog speakers (Census Bureau, Language Use in the United States: 2019). The underlying 2024 counts are in the Census Bureau’s table C16001, and the historical series is in the Language Use in the United States: 2019 report.
2. English Proficiency and the Limited-English Population
A home language other than English mostly signals bilingualism, not isolation. 60.9% of people who speak a non-English language at home also speak English “very well” (USAFacts, ACS 2024 tabulation). Pew Research Center’s reading of the 2023 survey frames the whole population in three parts: 78% speak only English at home, 14% speak another language at home and English very well, and 9% are not proficient in English.
That last group is still large in absolute terms, and it is overwhelmingly an immigrant and an age story. The Migration Policy Institute counts 28.9 million people with limited English proficiency, about 81% of them immigrants. Our own arithmetic on Census table B16004 (ACS 2024 1-year) shows the generational split: of roughly 12.0 million children aged 5 to 17 who speak a non-English language at home, about 9.1 million speak English very well (75.9%), while among roughly 9.9 million such adults aged 65 and over only about 4.3 million do (43.7%).
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| People age 5+ who speak English less than “very well”, 2024 | 28.9 million | Migration Policy Institute, Frequently Requested Statistics (ACS 2024) |
| Share of US population age 5+ not proficient in English, 2023 | 9% | Pew Research Center 2025 (ACS 2023) |
| Non-English home speakers who speak English “very well”, 2024 | 60.9% | USAFacts (ACS 2024 tabulation) |
| Highest and lowest “very well” rate by language, 2024 | Hindi 83.5%, Vietnamese 42.6% | USAFacts (ACS 2024 tabulation) |
| Immigrants age 5+ with limited English proficiency, 2024 | 47% (23.5 million of 49.8 million) | Migration Policy Institute, Frequently Requested Statistics (ACS 2024) |
| Immigrants age 5+ who speak English proficiently, 2023 | 53% | Pew Research Center 2025 (ACS 2023) |
| Spanish speakers who speak English less than “very well”, 2024 | 18.4 million of 44.9 million | Census Bureau ACS 2024 1-year, table C16001 |
| US adults who say it is very important that immigrants speak English fluently | 46% | Pew Research Center, American Trends Panel August 2024 |
Outlier note: proficiency varies more by language than by size of community. Chinese speakers are close to an even split, with 1.9 million of 3.7 million speaking English less than “very well” (Census Bureau ACS 2024 1-year, table C16001), while Hindi speakers report the highest proficiency of any large group. Pew’s breakdown is in its March 2025 analysis of English in the US, and the limited-English counts come from the Migration Policy Institute’s Frequently Requested Statistics. Section 7 covers what this looks like for children.
3. Bilingualism in the European Union by Country, Age and Education
Europe’s multilingualism is real but uneven, and it is increasingly an English story. English is spoken as a foreign language by 47% of EU residents and by 70% of those aged 15 to 24, while French sits at 11%, German at 10% and Spanish at 7% (European Commission, Eurobarometer Europeans and their languages 2024). The share who can converse in any additional language rose only 3 percentage points since 2012, so most of the movement is a generational swap rather than adults learning new languages.
The Eurostat Adult Education Survey shows who gets left out. Knowing a foreign language tracks education (90.2% of tertiary graduates versus 51.2% of adults with low attainment) and age (84.4% of 25 to 34 year olds versus 65.0% of 55 to 64 year olds). Self-rated mastery is rarer still: only 27.6% of adults who know a foreign language rate their best one as proficient, from 68.8% in Luxembourg to about 15% in Czechia and Italy. Most recent available data: Eurostat Adult Education Survey, 2022.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| EU residents able to converse in at least one additional language | 59% (+3 pp since 2012) | European Commission, Eurobarometer Europeans and their languages 2024 |
| Able to converse in at least two / in three additional languages | 28% / 11% | European Commission, Eurobarometer Europeans and their languages 2024 |
| Ages 15 to 24: at least one / at least two additional languages | 79% / 39% | European Commission, Eurobarometer Europeans and their languages 2024 |
| English as a foreign language: all respondents / ages 15 to 24 | 47% / 70% | European Commission, Eurobarometer Europeans and their languages 2024 |
| Adults 25 to 64 who know no foreign language | 25.3% | Eurostat Adult Education Survey 2022 |
| Adults 25 to 64 who know three or more foreign languages: top two countries | Slovenia 56.3%, Luxembourg 54.1% | Eurostat Adult Education Survey 2022 |
| Know at least one foreign language: ages 25 to 34 vs 55 to 64 | 84.4% vs 65.0% | Eurostat Adult Education Survey 2022 |
| Know at least one foreign language: high vs low education | 90.2% vs 51.2% | Eurostat Adult Education Survey 2022 |
Context note: Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria each have more than half of working-age adults reporting no foreign language, while Slovenia reaches 96.0% with at least one (Eurostat Adult Education Survey 2022). The school pipeline suggests the gap will keep narrowing from the bottom: 97.6% of EU lower secondary pupils studied English and 58.8% studied two or more foreign languages in 2024 (Eurostat, Foreign language learning statistics 2024). Adults who missed that pipeline are the core audience for the peer-practice tools covered in our language exchange app statistics. Sources: the Eurobarometer survey page and Eurostat’s Foreign language skills statistics.
4. Canada: English-French Bilingualism and Mother-Tongue Diversity
Canada’s official bilingualism is a Quebec phenomenon with a national label. Quebec’s English-French bilingualism rate rose from 40.8% in 2001 to 46.4% in 2021, while the rate in the rest of Canada fell from 10.3% to 9.5% (Statistics Canada, 2021 Census infographic 2022). The national figure of 18.0% is the highest ever recorded in a census, but it is essentially flat against 17.7% twenty years earlier, and 59.2% of all bilingual Canadians live in one province.
The faster-moving trend is non-official languages. One in four Canadians has a mother tongue other than English or French, and Punjabi grew 49% in five years to roughly match Mandarin as a home language (520,000 versus 531,000 predominant home speakers). Canada is becoming more multilingual and, outside Quebec, slightly less bilingual in the official sense. Most recent available data: Statistics Canada, 2021 Census. Language results from the 2026 Census are planned for release on September 8, 2027.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| English-French bilingualism rate, Canada, 2021 | 18.0% (about 6.6 million people) | Statistics Canada, 2021 Census infographic 2022 |
| English-French bilingualism rate, Quebec, 2021 vs 2001 | 46.4% vs 40.8% | Statistics Canada, 2021 Census infographic 2022 |
| English-French bilingualism rate, Canada outside Quebec, 2021 vs 2001 | 9.5% vs 10.3% | Statistics Canada, 2021 Census infographic 2022 |
| Bilingualism rate, New Brunswick, 2021 | 34.0% | Statistics Canada, 2021 Census infographic 2022 |
| Canadians able to converse in more than one language (any languages), 2021 vs 2016 | 41.2% vs 39.0% | Statistics Canada, The Daily, August 17, 2022 |
| People with a mother tongue other than English or French | 9,033,190 (one in four) | Statistics Canada, The Daily, August 17, 2022 |
| People speaking predominantly a non-official language at home | 4.6 million (12.7%) | Statistics Canada, The Daily, August 17, 2022 |
| Population with French as first official language spoken, 2021 vs 2016 | 21.4% vs 22.2% | Statistics Canada, The Daily, August 17, 2022 |
Context note: schooling is what moves the rate. Outside Quebec, 61% of people who attended French-language school or French immersion are bilingual, compared with 4% of people never schooled in French (Statistics Canada, StatCan Plus, September 2026). Mother tongue matters just as much: 47.6% of people with French as their only mother tongue are bilingual versus 9.0% of those with English only (Statistics Canada, 2021 Census infographic 2022). Sources: The Daily, August 17, 2022 and the bilingualism infographic.
5. United Kingdom and Australia: What the 2021 Censuses Show
Two English-dominant countries, two very different profiles. In England and Wales, the census asks for a single main language, and 91.1% of residents name English. In Australia, the census asks what is used at home, and 22.8% of the population, 5.8 million people, use a language other than English, up from 21.6% in 2016 (Australian Bureau of Statistics, Cultural diversity of Australia, 2021 Census). The question design matters: a “main language” question hides bilingual households that a “language at home” question reveals.
Both censuses agree on one point: low English proficiency is a small minority within the multilingual population. In England and Wales, 79.7% of people whose main language is not English speak it well or very well (43.9% plus 35.8%). In Australia, 15.1% of those who use another language at home speak English not well or not at all. Most recent available data: ONS Census 2021 and ABS Census 2021.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| England and Wales: English (English or Welsh in Wales) as main language, 2021 vs 2011 | 91.1% vs 92.3% | ONS, Language, England and Wales: Census 2021 |
| England and Wales: residents whose main language is not English | 5.1 million (8.9%) | ONS, Language, England and Wales: Census 2021 |
| Most common other main languages | Polish 612,000 (1.1%), Romanian 472,000 (0.8%) | ONS, Language, England and Wales: Census 2021 |
| Non-English main language speakers who cannot speak English well / at all | 17.1% (880,000) / 3.1% (161,000) | ONS, Language, England and Wales: Census 2021 |
| People aged 3+ in Wales able to speak Welsh, 2021 vs 2011 | 538,000 (17.8%) vs 562,000 (19.0%) | ONS, Welsh language, Wales: Census 2021 |
| Australia: people using a language other than English at home, 2021 vs 2016 | 5.8 million (22.8%) vs 4.9 million (21.6%) | ABS, Cultural diversity of Australia (2021 Census) |
| Australia: top home languages other than English | Mandarin 685,274 (2.7%), Arabic 367,159 (1.4%) | ABS, Cultural diversity of Australia (2021 Census) |
| Australia: people who speak English not well or not at all | 872,000 (3.4% of the population) | ABS, Cultural diversity of Australia (2021 Census) |
Outlier notes: Romanian was the fastest-growing main language in England and Wales, rising from 68,000 speakers in 2011 to 472,000 in 2021, and 1.5 million households (6.0%) contain people with different main languages. In Australia, Punjabi grew 80.4% between 2016 and 2021 to 239,033 home speakers (ABS, 2021 Census media release), and 48.4% of the 1.6 million Australian-born people who use another language at home were under 15. Sources: the ONS Language, England and Wales bulletin and the ABS article Cultural diversity of Australia.
6. What Bilingualism Is Worth: The Wage Premium and Employer Demand
Employers say they need languages far more loudly than paychecks show it. 9 out of 10 US employers rely on employees with skills in languages other than English, and 1 in 4 report losing business for lack of them (ACTFL, Making Languages Our Business 2019, a survey of 1,200 employers by Ipsos). Yet the best-known wage study found only a 2%-3% premium for college graduates with a second language, and a 2023 analysis of American Community Survey microdata from 2005 to 2019 found that US-raised bilinguals had expected earnings 0.8 percentage points lower than monolinguals once hours, industry and job skills were controlled.
The gap between the two findings is mostly about which language and which job. Churkina, Nazareno and Zullo report a premium of about 4 percentage points for European-language bilinguals and a penalty of about 4 for Hindi bilinguals, with premiums appearing at the lower end of the wage distribution. Demand is also broad rather than elite: 60% of the jobs with the highest demand for bilingual workers in 2015 were open to people with less than a bachelor’s degree (New American Economy, Not Lost in Translation 2017). Most recent available data: Saiz and Zoido 2005 for the college-graduate premium, ACTFL 2019 for the employer survey, and 2010 to 2015 for job postings.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Wage premium for US college graduates who speak a second language | 2%-3% | Saiz and Zoido, Review of Economics and Statistics 2005 |
| Expected earnings of US-raised bilinguals vs monolinguals, fully controlled model | 0.8 percentage points lower | Churkina, Nazareno and Zullo, PLOS ONE 2023 |
| Earnings difference for European-language bilinguals vs monolinguals | About 4 percentage points higher | Churkina, Nazareno and Zullo, PLOS ONE 2023 |
| 2020 earnings of former French immersion students vs similar non-immersion students, Canada | Approximately 16% more | Manuel, Canadian Public Policy 2024 |
| US employers relying on employees with non-English language skills | 9 out of 10 | ACTFL, Making Languages Our Business 2019 |
| US employers expecting language demand to increase within 5 years | 56% | ACTFL, Making Languages Our Business 2019 |
| US online job postings aimed at bilingual workers, 2010 vs 2015 | Roughly 240,000 vs roughly 630,000 | New American Economy, Not Lost in Translation 2017 |
| Median annual pay and jobs, interpreters and translators | $60,170 (May 2025); 73,900 jobs | BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook (May 2025 data) |
Caveats matter here. Manuel notes that the 16% immersion advantage would shrink to approximately 4.6% if an unobserved factor were as imbalanced across groups as Indigenous status, so selection into immersion explains part of it. Churkina and co-authors state that their analysis does not assess causality. At the country level, a University of Cambridge and RAND Europe study estimated that removing language barriers with Arabic-, Chinese-, French- and Spanish-speaking countries could raise UK exports by about £19bn a year, with benefit-to-cost ratios of at least 2:1 for expanding education in those languages (most recent available data: RAND Europe, 2022).
Where a credential is required, the price of proving proficiency shows up in testing volumes, which we cover in our IELTS, TOEFL and Duolingo English Test statistics. Sources: Saiz and Zoido 2005, Churkina, Nazareno and Zullo 2023, and ACTFL Making Languages Our Business.
7. Children Growing Up Bilingual and Education in the Mother Tongue
The youngest cohort is the most multilingual, and the system serving it was built for a smaller one. 7.1 million US children ages 0 to 5, one-third of all young children, are dual language learners (Migration Policy Institute 2025, ACS 2019-2023), and they make up more than 20% of young children in over half of states. By school age, 5.3 million public school students were classified as English learners in fall 2021, up from 4.6 million a decade earlier. Most recent available data: NCES Condition of Education 2024, fall 2021.
Home languages erode quickly across generations. In 2019, 72% of children aged 5 to 17 in Spanish-speaking households spoke Spanish, but fewer than half did in French- and Tagalog-speaking households (Census Bureau, Language Use in the United States: 2019). Among US Latino adults, 75% can carry on a conversation in Spanish at least pretty well, falling to 34% in the third or higher generation (Pew Research Center, Latinos’ Views of and Experiences With the Spanish Language 2023). Globally the pressure runs the other way: roughly 7,000 languages are in use but only 351 serve as a medium of instruction (UNESCO, Languages matter 2025).
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| US dual language learners, ages 0 to 5 | 7.1 million (one-third of young children) | Migration Policy Institute 2025 (ACS 2019-2023) |
| Dual language learners whose home language is Spanish | 56% | Migration Policy Institute 2025 (ACS 2019-2023) |
| Children in low-income families: dual language learners vs others | 43% vs 33% | Migration Policy Institute 2025 (ACS 2019-2023) |
| English learners in US public schools, fall 2021 vs fall 2011 | 5.3 million (10.6%) vs 4.6 million (9.4%) | NCES Condition of Education 2024 |
| English learners whose home language is Spanish, fall 2021 | 4.0 million (76.4% of English learners) | NCES Condition of Education 2024 |
| Latino adults who can converse in Spanish pretty well or very well: all vs third or higher generation | 75% vs 34% | Pew Research Center 2023 (survey August 2022) |
| People worldwide who lack education in a language they speak and understand fluently | 40% (up to 90% in some low- and middle-income countries) | UNESCO, Languages matter 2025 |
| Languages in use vs languages used as medium of instruction | About 7,000 vs 351 | UNESCO, Languages matter 2025 |
Context notes: 42% of dual language learners’ parents speak English less than “very well”, and 25% have less than a high school education versus 8% of parents in English-only households (Migration Policy Institute 2025). English learner status is front-loaded in the early grades, at 14.7% of kindergartners versus 6.1% of 12th graders, and ranges from 20.2% of students in Texas to 0.8% in West Virginia (NCES Condition of Education 2024). UNESCO adds that more than a quarter of a billion learners are affected by the language-of-instruction gap, and that African children taught in a familiar language were 30% more likely to read with understanding by the end of primary school. Pew also reports that 65% of Latino adults say it is at least very important that future generations of US Latinos speak Spanish. Sources: the Migration Policy Institute’s dual language learner data profiles, NCES Fast Facts on English learners, and UNESCO’s Languages matter: Global guidance on multilingual education.
Summary: Bilingualism and Multilingual Households by the Numbers
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| US residents age 5+ speaking a language other than English at home, 2024 | 74.1 million (23%) | Census Bureau ACS 2024 1-year, table C16001 |
| Growth in non-English home speakers, 1980 to 2019 | 23.1 million to 67.8 million (+194.0%) | Census Bureau, Language Use in the United States: 2019 (2022) |
| US residents who speak English less than “very well”, 2024 | 28.9 million | Migration Policy Institute, Frequently Requested Statistics (ACS 2024) |
| Non-English home speakers who speak English “very well”, 2024 | 60.9% | USAFacts (ACS 2024 tabulation) |
| Immigrants age 5+ who speak English proficiently, 2023 | 53% | Pew Research Center 2025 (ACS 2023) |
| EU residents able to converse in at least one additional language | 59% | European Commission, Eurobarometer Europeans and their languages 2024 |
| EU residents aged 15 to 24 able to do so | 79% | European Commission, Eurobarometer Europeans and their languages 2024 |
| EU adults 25 to 64 who know no foreign language | 25.3% | Eurostat Adult Education Survey 2022 |
| English-French bilingualism rate, Canada / Quebec / rest of Canada | 18.0% / 46.4% / 9.5% | Statistics Canada, The Daily, August 17, 2022 |
| Canadians with a mother tongue other than English or French | 9,033,190 (one in four) | Statistics Canada, The Daily, August 17, 2022 |
| England and Wales residents whose main language is not English | 5.1 million (8.9%) | ONS, Language, England and Wales: Census 2021 |
| Australians using a language other than English at home | 5.8 million (22.8%) | ABS, Cultural diversity of Australia (2021 Census) |
| Wage premium for US college graduates with a second language | 2%-3% | Saiz and Zoido, Review of Economics and Statistics 2005 |
| Expected earnings of US-raised bilinguals vs monolinguals, fully controlled | 0.8 percentage points lower | Churkina, Nazareno and Zullo, PLOS ONE 2023 |
| US employers relying on employees with non-English language skills | 9 out of 10 | ACTFL, Making Languages Our Business 2019 |
| US online postings for bilingual workers, 2010 vs 2015 | Roughly 240,000 vs roughly 630,000 | New American Economy, Not Lost in Translation 2017 |
| US dual language learners ages 0 to 5 | 7.1 million (one-third) | Migration Policy Institute 2025 (ACS 2019-2023) |
| English learners in US public schools, fall 2021 | 5.3 million (10.6%) | NCES Condition of Education 2024 |
| People worldwide lacking education in a language they speak and understand fluently | 40% | UNESCO, Languages matter 2025 |
Methodology and Sources
We ran targeted searches across US, EU, Canadian, UK, Australian and global sources, then read each primary document before recording a number. Figures seen only in search snippets were dropped. Where a calculation is ours, the inputs are named in the text.
- U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2024 1-year estimates, table C16001 and table B16004 (values retrieved through the Census Reporter API for the United States).
- U.S. Census Bureau, Dietrich and Hernandez, Language Use in the United States: 2019 (ACS-50, 2022).
- U.S. Census Bureau, 2017-2021 ACS Language Use Tables release (June 2025).
- USAFacts, How many people speak a language other than English at home (tabulation of Census Bureau ACS 2024 data; used for state shares and per-language proficiency rates).
- Migration Policy Institute, Frequently Requested Statistics on Immigrants and Immigration in the United States (ACS 2024 tabulation).
- Migration Policy Institute, dual language learner data profiles (August 2025, ACS 2019-2023).
- Pew Research Center, How Americans feel about making English the official language of the US (March 2025; survey of 9,201 adults, August 5-11, 2024; ACS 2023).
- Pew Research Center, Latinos’ Views of and Experiences With the Spanish Language (September 2023; 3,029 Hispanic adults surveyed August 1-14, 2022).
- NCES, Fast Facts: English learners (Condition of Education 2024, fall 2021 data).
- European Commission, Eurobarometer: Europeans and their languages (May 2024; face-to-face fieldwork September to October 2023, 27 member states), plus the Commission’s news release.
- Eurostat, Foreign language skills statistics (Adult Education Survey 2022) and Foreign language learning statistics (2024 reference year).
- Statistics Canada, The Daily, August 17, 2022, the English-French bilingualism infographic, and the StatCan Plus official languages article (September 2026).
- Office for National Statistics, Language, England and Wales: Census 2021 and Welsh language, Wales: Census 2021.
- Australian Bureau of Statistics, Cultural diversity of Australia and the 2021 Census media release.
- Saiz and Zoido, Listening to What the World Says: Bilingualism and Earnings in the United States, Review of Economics and Statistics 87(3), 2005.
- Churkina, Nazareno and Zullo, The labor market outcomes of bilinguals in the United States, PLOS ONE 18(6), 2023 (ACS 2005-2019 microdata; 818,987 observations in the main regression).
- Manuel, French Immersion and Labour Market Earnings, Canadian Public Policy 50(4), 2024.
- ACTFL, Making Languages Our Business (2019; Ipsos survey of 1,200 US employers).
- New American Economy (now American Immigration Council), Not Lost in Translation (March 2017; Burning Glass Technologies postings data).
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook: Interpreters and Translators (May 2025 pay, 2025-35 projections).
- University of Cambridge and RAND Europe, languages education and the UK economy (RR-A1814-1, 2022).
- UNESCO, Languages matter: Global guidance on multilingual education (released February 21, 2025; figures as stated in UNESCO’s own release for the guidance) and What you need to know about multilingual education.
- Data watch: (1) The 2024 US total differs slightly by tabulation. Table C16001 gives 321,745,950 people age 5+ and 247,695,100 English-only speakers, a difference of 74,050,850 (23.0%); USAFacts reports 74.1 million, while the Migration Policy Institute text rounds to 73 million and cites 247.9 million English-only speakers. We use the Census table. (2) The Census Bureau said in an August 2026 advisory that the release date for the 2025 ACS 1-year estimates is still being determined, so 2024 remains the latest year. (3) The ABS publishes two figures for Australians using a language other than English at home: 5,663,709 in its 2021 Census media release and 5.8 million (22.8%) in its Cultural diversity of Australia article; the same applies to low English proficiency (852,706 versus 872,000). We cite the article. (4) Limited English proficiency is self-reported, and Pew’s 9% not-proficient share uses 2023 data while the 28.9 million count uses 2024. (5) Our age comparison in section 2 sums the Census B16004 cells for “very well” and all non-English speakers by age group; treat it as an approximation. (6) Canadian, UK and Australian figures are from 2021 censuses, the Eurostat skills data are from 2022, NCES data are for fall 2021, and the wage and employer-demand studies date from 2005 to 2024; all are the most recent available. (7) The wage premium literature conflicts by design: Saiz and Zoido measure college graduates with a learned second language, Churkina and co-authors measure people who grew up with a home language other than English.
Last updated: October 11, 2026. We update this roundup quarterly, and the next refresh is expected when the Census Bureau releases the delayed 2025 American Community Survey 1-year language tables.