Maps of low income, LEP speakers in Massachusetts

What does LEP stand for?

A Limited English Proficient (LEP) speaker is an individual who speaks English "less than very well". Based on US Census definitions this includes speaking English "well", "not well" and "not at all".

What maps do we produce?

Each year we create the following Massachusetts maps:

• Low income LEP maps – For a given Federal Poverty Level (FPL) (e.g. 200% FPL):
  • Map 1 displays how many people below that FPL level live in each Public Use Microdata Area (PUMA), and
  • Map 2 displays how many LEP speakers below that FPL level live in each PUMA area, i.e. how many of those low income population are LEP speakers.
• Language specific Low Income LEP maps - To illustrate the geographic distribution of Massachusetts LEP speakers that live below 200% of FPL, we create individual maps for the 6 most common LEP languages.

Where do we get data from?

We use the most recent American Community Survey data available on the US Census website. The current maps are based on ACS one year Public Use Microdata Sample data as of 2017.

High level summary

State poverty vs LEP poverty (<=200% FPL) :

*The first year we did this analysis.

LEP Low Income (<=200% FPL) Population breakdown by language:

* First time inclusion.

Language specific low income LEP maps in Massachusetts

Click any area in Massachusetts to see:

• the name of the geographic area (PUMA area)
• the number of low income LEP Spanish/Portuguese/Chinese/Haitian Creole/Vietnamese/Arabic speakers in the PUMA, and
• the percentage of low income LEP Spanish/Portuguese/Chinese/Haitian Creole/Vietnamese/Arabic speakers that live in the PUMA.

The darker the area, the more low income LEP speakers in that language live. For example, the dark brown area of Springfield City on the Spanish map is home to 8% of the low income LEP Spanish speakers that live in Massachusetts.

Language specific map jump links:

• Spanish
• Portuguese
• Chinese
• Haitian Creole
• Vietnamese
• Arabic

2017 Low income LEP Spanish speakers in Massachusetts

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2017 Low income LEP Portuguese speakers in Massachusetts

2017 Low income LEP Chinese speakers in Massachusetts

2017 Low income LEP Haitian Creole speakers in Massachusetts

2017 Low income LEP Vietnamese speakers in Massachusetts

2017 Low income LEP Arabic speakers in Massachusetts

Low income LEP maps in Massachusetts

For Map 1, click any area on the map to see:

• the name of the geographic area (PUMA area)
• the number of low income persons in the area, and
• the percentage of low income population in the area over the low income population in MA.

For Map 2, click any area on the map to see:

• the name of the geographic area (PUMA area)
• the number of low income LEP speakers in the area
• the number of low income persons in the area
• the percentage of low income LEP population in the area over the low income LEP population in the area, and
• the percentage of the top 6 languages spoken among those low income LEP speakers in the area.

115% FPL map jump links:

• Map 1 - Low Income Population in MA
• Map 2 – Low Income LEP Speakers in MA

200% FPL map jump links:

• Map 1 - Low Income Population in MA
• Map 2 - Low Income LEP Speakers in MA

Map 1 - 2017 Population below 115% Federal Poverty Level in Massachusetts

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Map 2 - 2017 LEP speakers below 115% Federal Poverty Level in Massachusetts

Map 1 - 2017 Population below 200% Federal Poverty Level in Massachusetts

Map 2 - 2017 LEP speakers below 200% Federal Poverty Level in Massachusetts