Speaking a second language could be worth thousands of dollars a year in the United States, but the financial return on that skill varies dramatically depending on where a worker lives, according to a new state-by-state analysis.
The analysis by Mendoza Immigration Law estimates that bilingual workers in Washington, D.C., earn an annual premium of $3,363 compared with English-only peers, the highest figure in the country. Massachusetts follows at $2,574, narrowly ahead of New York at $2,568.
California ranks fourth, with an estimated bilingual pay premium of $2,540 a year, followed by Washington state at $2,532. Connecticut, New Jersey, Colorado, New Hampshire, and Maryland complete the top 10, with estimated annual premiums ranging from $2,101 to $2,341.
At the other end of the ranking, bilingualism is valued far less in Mississippi, where the estimated average premium is $1,398 a year. West Virginia, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and South Dakota also rank near the bottom.
That means an identical language skill could be worth almost $2,000 more annually in Washington, D.C., than in Mississippi. If sustained over a 30-year career, the D.C. premium would exceed $100,000 before accounting for raises, inflation, or investment growth.
The figures are estimates, not direct measurements of what individual bilingual employees currently earn. The analysis applied a wage-premium percentage drawn from academic research to government wage data in each state and Washington, D.C. As a result, the ranking largely reflects differences in average local earnings. Places with higher salaries produce a larger estimated dollar return for bilingualism.
Research on the issue is not unanimous. A frequently cited study by economists Albert Saiz and Elena Zoido found modest wage premiums among U.S. college graduates who spoke another language, ranging from roughly 1.5% for Spanish to higher returns for some less commonly spoken languages. Other studies found that apparent bilingual pay advantages became statistically insignificant after researchers controlled for education and other worker characteristics.
The new analysis arrives as linguistic diversity reaches a new high in American homes. About 74.1 million U.S. residents age 5 and older spoke a language other than English at home in 2024, representing 23% of that population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey.
Spanish is by far the most widely spoken language after English. Nearly 44.9 million people spoke Spanish at home in 2024, accounting for 13.9% of U.S. residents age 5 and older and about 61% of those who used a non-English language at home.
Chinese, including its different dialects, is the next most common individual non-English language, although it trails Spanish by a wide margin. Tagalog, Vietnamese, Arabic and French are also among the country's most frequently spoken languages.
Speaking another language at home does not automatically mean someone is bilingual, and it should not be confused with limited English proficiency. Many of those residents also speak English fluently. Census data measure language use at home and how well respondents say they speak English, not whether they can use two languages professionally.
The states with the largest populations of residents who speak English less than "very well" also include several where the estimated bilingual premium is relatively high. California has approximately 6.7 million residents with limited English proficiency and ranks fourth for bilingual pay. New York, with about 2.7 million such residents, ranks third. New Jersey also places among the top 10.
Texas and Florida illustrate the limits of that relationship. Both have large populations requiring language access, estimated at 3.9 million and 3 million, respectively, but their calculated bilingual premiums fall below the national midpoint of about $2,040.
Demand for multilingual employees is not new. A 2019 survey commissioned by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages found that nine in 10 U.S. employers relied on workers with skills in languages other than English. Fifty-six percent expected demand to increase over the following five years, while one-third of language-dependent employers reported difficulty finding qualified workers.
Spanish was the language employers needed most, followed by Chinese, French, Japanese and German. Nearly one-quarter of surveyed employers said language shortages had caused them to lose or abandon a business opportunity.
With almost 45 million people speaking Spanish at home and employers reporting unmet demand for multilingual talent, the data suggest bilingual workers possess a marketable skill. Whether employers pay them directly for it, however, still depends heavily on their occupation, industry and ZIP code.
