Limited English Profiency on Income Levels

Language proficiency is one of the key requirements in almost every job posting, and being proficient in a language can open new doors for an individual. Using a sample of data drawn from the American Community Surveys (U.S. Census) of 2021-2023, I seek to examine the effect of Limited English proficiency on a person’s income in the USA. I used R to look at the insights into how Limited English Proficiency (LEP) effects a person’s wage when controling education level and gender. I modeled a person’s income, as a linear function of her English profiency, education level, and gender. Across all education levels, males earn 20–50% more than females, with the largest gender and language-based income gaps appearing at the graduate level where English Proficient males earn over $70,000, nearly 50% more than their female counterparts.