The Talent We Already Have: How Limited English Proficiency Keeps Skilled Workers Below Their Potential

Imagine arriving in the United States with a university degree, years of professional experience, and the ability to contribute immediately in your field. You may have been an engineer, a nurse, an accountant, a teacher, a business professional, or a laboratory technician. You understand your profession. You have already studied it. In many cases, you have already practiced it for years. And yet, in the United States, you may find yourself working in a position that requires only a fraction of those abilities.

One of the most powerful reasons is also one of the easiest to underestimate: English proficiency.

The economic consequences of limited English extend far beyond the inconvenience of struggling through a conversation. Language can determine whether a worker is able to explain complex ideas, understand professional instructions, interview successfully, navigate certification requirements, communicate with customers and colleagues, or demonstrate the knowledge that he or she already possesses. In other words, a person can have the skill and still be unable to fully access the opportunity.

Research shows just how large that divide can become. The Brookings Institution found that among full-time, year-round workers in the United States, median earnings for English-proficient workers were 39 percent higher than for workers with limited English proficiency. Perhaps even more striking, education did not eliminate the gap. Among workers holding bachelor's degrees, English-proficient workers still had median earnings approximately 30 percent higher than those with limited English proficiency.

That finding challenges a common assumption. We often think of education as the great economic equalizer. Earn the degree. Acquire the skills. Build the experience. Work hard, and economic opportunity should follow. But for many people, English proficiency sits between education and opportunity. A degree can establish what someone knows. English often determines whether that knowledge can be effectively communicated, recognized, and used in the American workplace.

The result has become significant enough that researchers have given it a name: brain waste.

Brain waste occurs when educated workers are unemployed or employed in positions substantially below their education and skill levels. It is the engineer who cannot enter engineering. The healthcare professional whose medical education is never fully utilized. The experienced business professional working in a position that requires none of the expertise accumulated over a career.

And this is not a marginal phenomenon. The Migration Policy Institute found that, as of 2019, approximately 2 million college-educated immigrants in the United States were underemployed. About 21 percent of college-educated immigrants were either unemployed or working in jobs below their skill level.

English proficiency emerged as one of the most powerful factors explaining who was being left behind. Among college-educated immigrants who reported speaking English “not well” or “not at all,” approximately 55 percent were underemployed. Among immigrants who were fully proficient in English, the rate was approximately 16 percent. After researchers accounted for other characteristics, English-language proficiency remained the strongest single predictor of underemployment among college-educated immigrants. Those with very limited English skills were almost five times more likely to be underemployed than fully proficient speakers.

That is an extraordinary difference, and it reveals something important about how we think about English education. Learning English is not simply about assimilation into daily life. It is not simply about ordering food, speaking with a neighbor, or completing a government form. For millions of people, English is the bridge between the skills they already possess and the economic value those skills can create.

Consider a trained healthcare professional. The underlying medical knowledge does not disappear when that person crosses a border. Anatomy remains anatomy. Clinical experience remains experience. Years spent learning how to care for patients remain valuable. There may certainly be licensing, credentialing, and retraining requirements before someone can practice professionally in the United States. Those are separate and legitimate issues. But professional English adds another barrier. A worker must be able to communicate with patients, understand technical terminology, document information, interact with colleagues, complete examinations, navigate licensing procedures, and demonstrate competence in an English-speaking environment. Until that bridge is crossed, much of the worker's existing knowledge can remain economically dormant.

The same is true for engineers, educators, scientists, accountants, managers, technology professionals, and skilled tradespeople. The country may already possess the human capital it says it needs. It simply may not be using it.

The economic cost of that failure is substantial. An earlier Migration Policy Institute analysis estimated that the underemployment of college-educated immigrants resulted in approximately $39.4 billion in forgone annual earnings and more than $10 billion in unrealized federal, state, and local tax revenues. Those numbers help illustrate why this issue reaches far beyond the individual worker.

When a highly trained person remains in a low-skilled position, the immediate loss is personal: lower wages, fewer opportunities for advancement, and often the frustration of knowing that years of education and professional experience are not being fully used. But the effects spread outward. A family has less income. Communities receive less economic activity. Businesses lose access to skilled workers. Governments collect less tax revenue. And the country receives a smaller return from human talent that is already present within its borders.

There is an especially striking contradiction here. American employers regularly report difficulty finding qualified workers in important sectors. At the same time, researchers have identified hundreds of thousands of highly educated immigrants whose skills remain underutilized. In healthcare alone, the Migration Policy Institute identified approximately 270,000 underemployed immigrants with college degrees in health or medicine in its 2021 analysis.

That does not mean every one of those individuals could immediately fill a vacant medical position. Credential recognition, licensing, experience requirements, and other barriers matter. But it does demonstrate the scale of the unrealized talent already available.

The question therefore should not only be, How do we bring more skilled people into the workforce? It should also be: How do we allow the skilled people who are already here to fully participate?

English education is one part of that answer. But not simply conversational English. Professionals need language that connects to professional life: the ability to explain ideas, participate in meetings, understand technical material, communicate confidently, write effectively, prepare for interviews, navigate professional environments, and acquire the specialized vocabulary of their fields.

That distinction is central to the vision of First Language. English instruction should not end when a learner becomes capable of completing everyday tasks. For someone attempting to rebuild a professional career, ordinary conversational proficiency may be only the beginning. The real objective is independence. It is reaching the point at which English no longer prevents a person's education, intelligence, ambition, or professional experience from being seen.

That can transform an individual's life. A worker earning closer to his or her professional potential can build financial stability more quickly, invest in education, purchase a home, support children, save for retirement, and participate more fully in the economy. But multiplied across hundreds of thousands, or millions, of people, the effect becomes national. Higher earnings become additional consumer spending. Better employment becomes greater productivity. Professional advancement becomes additional tax revenue. Previously underutilized education becomes productive human capital. And talent that was already present begins working at its actual capacity.

This is why English proficiency must be understood as an economic issue as much as an educational one. The cost of limited English is not measured only in words that cannot be understood. It can be measured in careers delayed, salaries suppressed, qualifications unused, promotions missed, businesses never started, and professional knowledge left on the sidelines.

America invests enormous energy in finding talent. Yet some of the talent it needs may already be here.

Sometimes, the difference between possessing that talent and being able to use it is language.

First Language exists to help close that gap, not simply by teaching people how to speak English, but by helping English stop being the barrier between who they are and what they are capable of becoming.