Rural Broadband Investments Promote an Inclusive Economy

High-speed internet is a necessity, but rural Americans, particularly poor people and people of color, often lack access to this important utility. This challenge requires investment on a historic scale as well as public understanding of the disparities between rural and urban areas during the pandemic, what they mean for rural Americans’ access to services that meet their basic needs, and why broadband is a part of the country’s essential infrastructure. Using data from the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking, the column finds:

• Rural residents are almost twice as likely as urban ones to lack high-speed internet at home.
• 31.62 percent of workers in urban areas reported working from home full time in the previous week due to the pandemic, compared with just 13.61 percent of rural workers.
• Rural students were twice as likely as urban students to report lacking adequate technology to complete their coursework during the pandemic.
• Low-income families and communities of color are less likely than white, affluent households to have broadband at home.

[Zoe Willingham is a research associate for Economic Policy at the Center for American Progress. Areeba Haider is a research associate for the Poverty to Prosperity Program at the Center.]