More People Say Goodbye to Their Landlines

More than a quarter of U.S. households have ditched landline phones, a trend driven by younger Americans relying on their cellphones, according to Census Bureau data.

Just 71% of households had landlines in 2011, down from a little more than 96% 15 years ago. Cellphone ownership reached 89%, up from about 36% in 1998, the first year the survey asked about the devices. The youngest households are abandoning landlines in droves. About two-thirds of households led by people ages 15 to 29 relied only on cellphones in 2011, compared with 28% for the broader population. Stéphane Téral, principal analyst with consulting firm Infonetics Research, said the decline in landline usage accelerated with the economic downturn, which squeezed budgets, and the advent of the iPhone, which lured many consumers into the mobile market. The youngest US homeowners and renters are more likely to own a computer than a clothes washer. About 73% of households led by people ages 15 to 29 had a washing machine in their homes, well below the national average of 85%. But 81% of the same young demographic owned a computer, a bit more than the national average of 78%. In 1992, computer ownership for all households stood at 21%.