Thirty-one states have made English their official language, and five more are hoping to join the club this year. The U.S. government has yet to take that step, even though Americans still strongly believe English should be the nation's officially recognized language. Most also agree overwhelmingly that it’s important to know the language to get ahead in today's world.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 83% of American Adults believe English should be the official language of the United States. Only 10% disagree. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

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The national survey of 1,000 Adults was conducted on August 9-10, 2014 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.