Pew Charitable Trusts

In 2020, states committed to significant funding to expand access to broadband services, even amid an economic recession. The COVID-19 pandemic—and the necessity to move routine activities such as schooling and doctors’ visits online to maintain social distancing—sharpened the focus of governors and lawmakers in 2020 on the need to close the digital divide. States continued to establish programs to oversee broadband development and expand the types of entities that could engage in broadband deployment projects.

A Q&A with Adrianne Furniss, executive director of the Benton Institute, and Matt Schmit, deputy director of the Illinois Department of Commerce & Economic Opportunity

A Q&A with Bernadine Joselyn, director of public policy and engagement for the Blandin Foundation and member of the Minnesota Governor's Broadband Task Force. 

An interview about West Virginia’s bipartisan approach to closing the digital divide, with state Senator Robert “Bob” Plymale (D) and state Delegate and Assistant Majority Whip Daniel Linville (R). Broadband expansion is unusual in these politically polarized times: a public policy issue that enjoys bipartisan support.

An interview with Francella Ochillo, executive director of Next Century Cities. Although discussion about broadband deployment has long focused on federal efforts, local governments and communities have been working to close the digital divide. The pandemic has exposed the many reasons why we simply can’t wait to achieve widespread broadband access and why local leaders are so important to helping us get there.

A Q&A with Johannes Bauer, director of the James H. and Mary B. Quello Center for Media and Information Policy at Michigan State University, about how broadband access is affecting K-12 education. 

Q. Did you find that the lack of high-speed internet has an impact beyond getting homework done?

A Q&A with John Horrigan, senior fellow at the Technology Policy Institute.

The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, passed by Congress and signed into law in March 2020, provided more than $2 trillion in economic stimulus to address the pandemic.