New NTIA Data Show Enduring Barriers to Closing the Digital Divide, Achieving Digital Equity

Data from the 2021 NTIA Internet Use Survey show that historically less-connected communities used the Internet and connected devices in greater numbers than they did two years ago before the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite that progress, the substantial disparities that NTIA has tracked for decades continued to be evident, highlighting the urgent need to work toward digital equity in the United States. Overall, 80 percent of Americans ages 3 and older used the Internet in some fashion in 2021, which represents a modest increase from 79 percent in 2019. However, this top-line number masks some progress among groups that too often are left on the wrong side of the digital divide. For example, even as Internet use among White non-Hispanics was unchanged at 82 percent from 2019 to 2021, it increased from 75 percent to 77 percent during this period among both African Americans and Hispanics. There were also outsized increases in connectivity along other demographic lines, including seniors, persons with disabilities, and those in low-income households. These groups made significant gains in the breadth of tools at their disposal, including in their computing devices and types of Internet access services. Yet, in many cases, they remain at a substantial disadvantage. Overall, 69 percent of Americans lived in a household with both fixed and mobile Internet services, compared with 67 percent in 2019 and 65 percent in 2017.  These gains came almost exclusively from those in households with incomes below $50,000 per year, and seemed to accelerate between 2019 and 2021. Similarly, the shares of Americans living in mobile-only households and in households with no Internet service subscriptions at all dropped during this period.