Rural Areas Are Looking for Workers. They Need Broadband to Get Them.

Rural areas have complained for years that slow, unreliable or simply unavailable internet access is restricting their economic growth. But the pandemic has given new urgency to those concerns, at the same time that President Biden’s infrastructure plan — which includes $100 billion to improve broadband access — has raised hope that the problem might finally be addressed. In a recent survey conducted for The New York Times by the online research platform SurveyMonkey, 78 percent of adults said they supported broadband investment, including 62 percent of Republicans. Businesses, too, have consistently supported broadband investment. Major industry groups such as the US Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable and the National Association of Manufacturers have all released policy recommendations calling for federal spending to help close the “digital divide.”