Built by Many Hands: Why English Proficiency Matters to America's Immigrant Workforce

The story of the United States has always been, in part, a story of movement. People arrived from different countries, speaking different languages, carrying different skills, traditions, professions, and ambitions. They built homes and railroads, worked in factories, opened businesses, cared for families, harvested food, staffed hospitals, constructed cities, and raised children who would become part of the next generation of American workers and professionals. Immigration did not occur outside the American economic story. It has been woven into it.

That remains true today. In 2024, nearly 31 million foreign-born people were working in the United States, representing approximately 19.2 percent of the civilian labor force. Foreign-born adults also had a labor-force participation rate of almost 67 percent, compared with roughly 62 percent among the U.S.-born population. In construction alone, immigrants now represent more than one-quarter of the national workforce. These workers are helping build housing, hotels, offices, infrastructure, and communities across the country.

The scale of that contribution becomes even clearer when we look beyond individual industries. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the recent increase in immigration will expand U.S. nominal gross domestic product by approximately $8.9 trillion between 2024 and 2034, compared with what GDP would otherwise have been, while increasing federal revenues by about $1.2 trillion over that period. Much of that effect comes from a larger labor force, additional wages, greater economic activity, and the income and payroll taxes generated by that activity.

Those numbers describe something larger than immigration itself. They describe human capital already operating inside the United States.

Yet there is a striking contradiction within that story. Millions of immigrants contribute labor, skill, productivity, taxes, and consumer spending to the American economy while remaining unable to participate in that economy at their full potential because of limited English proficiency.

For a worker, language can determine much more than whether a conversation is easy or difficult. It can affect whether someone understands safety instructions, communicates with a supervisor, applies for a promotion, enters a training program, earns a professional credential, speaks confidently during an interview, understands workplace benefits, or moves from an entry-level position into management. For someone who already possesses education or professional experience, English can determine whether that expertise is recognized and used at all.

Research from the Brookings Institution illustrates the scale of the difference. Among full-time, year-round workers, median earnings for English-proficient workers were 39 percent higher overall than for workers with limited English proficiency. Even among workers holding bachelor's degrees, the earnings advantage remained approximately 30 percent. Brookings also found that highly skilled immigrants without English proficiency were about twice as likely to be working in jobs requiring low levels of education or training as comparable immigrants who were proficient in English.

That means the economic cost of limited English is not confined to the person struggling with the language. When a trained engineer works far below his or her qualifications, when an experienced business professional cannot advance because professional communication remains a barrier, or when a skilled employee cannot complete the training necessary for promotion, the country receives less value from talent that is already here. Wages are lower, tax revenues are lower, consumer spending is lower, and employers lose productive capacity.

There is something particularly important about this in the American context. Immigrant communities have often entered the economy first through jobs that require enormous physical effort but relatively little institutional familiarity with the United States. Construction, hospitality, agriculture, food service, manufacturing, housekeeping, landscaping, warehousing, and similar sectors have provided entry points for generations of newcomers. These jobs matter enormously. They help build and operate the physical country around us.

But contribution should not become confinement.

The person helping construct a hotel may also have the potential to supervise the project, manage the property, become an engineer, open a contracting company, or send a child into architecture. The person cleaning hotel rooms may eventually manage an entire housekeeping department, move into hospitality administration, start a business, or help a child pursue nursing, law, technology, or another profession. A restaurant employee may become a manager or owner. A warehouse worker may become a logistics specialist. A technician may become an engineer.

The question is whether the systems surrounding these workers help make that progression possible.

English proficiency is one of the most important tools in that process because language affects the ability to convert labor into mobility.

Brookings estimated that nearly 19.2 million working-age adults in the United States were limited English proficient in its major national analysis, representing almost one in ten working-age adults at the time. Most were participating in the labor market. The researchers concluded that English proficiency was an essential gateway to economic opportunity and argued that greater investment in English instruction could improve human capital, productivity, and outcomes for workers and their children.

That last point matters because the impact does not stop with one worker. A parent who develops stronger English can communicate more effectively with an employer, but may also become better able to navigate a child's school. Higher earnings can create greater household stability. Greater knowledge of American institutions can influence educational decisions. Professional advancement can expose children to different careers and expectations. The effects of language acquisition can therefore move outward, from an individual, to a family, to a workplace, to a community, and eventually across generations.

This is why English education should not be viewed narrowly as remediation for people who do not speak English. It is better understood as an investment in productive capacity.

America already has millions of people working, building, serving, creating, caring, and producing. Some arrived recently. Others have lived here for decades. Some possess advanced degrees. Others entered the workforce directly. They work in construction sites, hotels, hospitals, kitchens, factories, schools, farms, laboratories, warehouses, offices, and businesses.

Their contribution is already visible.

The challenge is ensuring that language does not place an artificial ceiling on how far that contribution can go.

This is particularly relevant as the country confronts workforce needs across multiple industries. Immigration expands the labor force, but the value of a larger workforce is not determined simply by the number of people working. It is also determined by how effectively their knowledge, skills, and ambitions can be developed and deployed.

English proficiency can help transform a worker from someone who follows instructions into someone who gives them; from someone who performs a task into someone who trains others to perform it; from someone working below an existing qualification into someone able to use that qualification; and from someone participating at the edge of an institution into someone capable of navigating it independently.

That transition benefits the individual, but it also benefits the country.

Higher productivity strengthens employers. Higher earnings strengthen families. Professional advancement increases tax revenues and consumer spending. Greater institutional understanding improves integration. And children raised in households with greater linguistic and economic mobility inherit not only greater resources, but greater knowledge of how American educational and professional systems work.

For generations, immigrants have helped build America with their labor.

The next step is ensuring that the people whose hands help build the country also have the language tools necessary to participate fully in everything they helped create.

That is part of the broader purpose of First Language.

English is not the destination. It is the infrastructure that allows talent, education, experience, and ambition to travel farther.

And when millions of people are able to travel farther, the impact is not only personal.

It is national.