Adoption

In the hopes of increasing digital equity, here are some observations and suggestions for framing, enacting and collectively furthering digital inclusion policy. 1) Terminology helps frame policy. 2) Anchor policy in comprehensive frameworks. 3) Government has a role as a convener & participant, but not a singular responsibility. 4) Digital inclusion planning and policy should be intentional, and also nurtured. 5) Build community capacity and work with trusted ambassadors.

An Axios/SurveyMonkey poll reveals that income strongly affects how Americans access the internet, and the divide cuts across geography. In both urban and rural areas, exactly half of the lower income population reported having broadband internet at home — the lowest percentage of any group.

The National Digital Inclusion Alliance has asked the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (“OCC”), the US Treasury Department agency which serves as the Federal regulator for many of the nation’s banks, to allow those banks to seek Community Reinvestment Act credit for their financial support of community digital inclusion programs serving low and moderate income (LMI) households in their lending areas. In the comments, NDIA Executive Director Angela Siefer said:

The Knight Foundation has announced a $1 million investment in that effort for a project called the Civic Tech Experience, which includes a series of programs for the West Charlotte community aimed at helping families there build better digital skills, as well as get access to technology. Other functions of the Civic Tech Experience also include connections to economic resources and chances for community engagement.

This study draws on participant observation and interviews with low-income adults in Chicago to show how the poor stay connected to phone service and mobile Internet through the possession of multiple phones, including those subsidized by government aid. The “accumulation” of phones by individuals is widely observed, though underexplored in scholarship. Popular media coverage in the US frames the possession of multiple phones by people in poverty as criminal or excessive.

The American job market, by a lot of measures, seems very healthy. The unemployment rate is low and, though labor-force participation has been at historically-low levels, recent employment numbers indicate that more people are coming back to the job market. But there are some Americans who have not benefitted from the improving job picture. Even among those with jobs, wage growth – especially for those whose pay is middle-income or less – has been weak, while upper-income workers have fared better.

America’s public schools are still promoting devices with screens — even offering digital-only preschools. The rich are banning screens from class altogether. It wasn’t long ago that the worry was that rich students would have access to the internet earlier, gaining tech skills and creating a digital divide. Schools ask students to do homework online, while only about two-thirds of people in the US have broadband internet service.

The National Digital Inclusion Alliance has released its fourth annual “Worst Connected Cities” ranking, based on US Census American Community Survey (ACS) data for 2017, which was released in Sept 2018 by the US Census Bureau. NDIA ranked all 191 US cities with more than 50,000 households by the percentage of each city’s households that lack home Internet connections of any kind. This data is not an indication of the availability of home broadband service, but rather of the extent to which households are actually connected to it.

The support structures that assist low-income families cannot work unless those in need have functional means of communication. Doctors monitoring children with fragile health, employers who can offer an extra shift to a struggling worker, nutrition support programs like SNAP which must confirm income eligibility — all these must be able to communicate with a low-income person, often within limited timeframes. Our collective and individual economic well-being is dependent on communications tools.