The Racial Digital Divide Persists

In 2016, Free Press released Digital Denied, which showed that disparities in broadband adoption — commonly known as the digital divide —stem not only from income inequality, but from systemic racial discrimination. The report found that nearly half of all people in the country without home-internet access were people of color. Much of that gap was indeed the result of income inequality. People of color generally have far lower average incomes than White people, and low-income families often cannot afford to subscribe to home broadband. But even when we accounted for these differences of income and other demographic factors like education and employment, a racial digital divide still persisted. Even among the same income brackets, Blacks and Hispanics still  lagged behind Whites in broadband adoption. Since the report’s release, further research has demonstrated the need for affordable options — but has devoted little attention to the impact of racial inequities. But instead of trying to fix it, our policymakers have sent a signal that mobility crumbs are good enough for people of color who can’t afford expensive wired services or can’t clear the credit-check hurdle — even though mobile broadband is less reliable, less robust and sometimes subject to restrictive data caps.