New Survey Shows Ongoing Digital Divide

As Congress begins the final stretch of debating an infrastructure bill that includes more than $65 billion in funding for the building of broadband infrastructure, a new survey is showing that the country’s digital divide still exists.

According to the Pew Research Center, some 43% of lower income adults say they do not have access to broadband services. A nearly equal large number, at 41%, say they lack either a desktop or laptop computer.

Says a press release accompanying the survey: “By comparison, each of these technologies is nearly ubiquitous among adults in households earning $100,000 or more a year.”

In fact, the survey shows that some 63% of respondents earning $100,000 annually or more said they have everything from broadband services, a desktop or laptop computer, and smartphone.

Despite the income variables, an earlier study conducted by Pew this spring showed that well over 90% of respondents nationally use the internet, whether they own a computer or not.

In the 1950s the number of people owning a television climbed from less than 10% the first year of that decade, to nearly 86% in 1959.

Similarly, according to Pew, the number of people with at least one computer in their home has gone up every year since 2000, when the figure stood at 52%. Now, combining all income levels, its stands at 93%.

The figures have been less dramatic in the area of actual home broadband connections, with 1% of respondents in the year 2000 saying they had such services, a number that climbed to 60% a decade later and has now leveled out at 77%.

By Garry Boulard

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