Citation[]
Council of Economic Advisers, Mapping the Digital Divide (July 2015) (full-text).
Overview[]
This report examines the state of the digital divide using new data from the Census’ 2013 American Community Survey (ACS), which was linked with the most recent version of the National Broadband Map (NBM). The most important findings illustrate how the digital divide reflects factors that influence the demand for Internet, such as household income, and also the costs of providing it (e.g. population density).
Overall, the evidence shows that progress is being made, with the largest gains occurring for those groups that started with the least. While this suggests the beginning of convergence toward uniformly high levels of access and adoption, there is still a substantial distance to go, particularly in the poorest neighborhoods and most rural communities, to ensure that all Americans can take advantage of the opportunities created by recent advances in computing and communications technology.
The Council of Economic Advisers issued an updated report titled "The Digital Divide and Economic Benefits of Broadband Access" in March 2016.