More than 30 years after the debut of the internet, broadband adoption and smartphone ownership have grown rapidly for Americans – including those who have low incomes. But the digital lives of those low-income and high-income people are still very different, new data from Pew Research Center show.
According to a Pew survey conducted earlier this year, the shares of Americans in each income tier who have home broadband or a smartphone have not significantly changed from 2019 to 2021. Roughly a quarter of adults with household incomes below $30,000 a year (24 percent) say they don’t own a smartphone.
About four-in-ten adults with lower incomes do not have home broadband services (43 percent) or a desktop or laptop computer (41 percent). Most of those with lower incomes are not tablet owners, according to Pew. By comparison, each of these technologies is nearly ubiquitous among adults in households earning $100,000 or more a year. Continue Reading
Americans with higher household incomes are more likely to have several devices that enable them to go online. About six-in-ten adults living in households earning $100,000 or more a year (63 percent) report having home broadband services, a smartphone, a desktop or laptop computer and a tablet, compared with 23 percent of those living in low-income households.
In contrast, thirteen percent of adults with household incomes below $30,000 a year don’t have access to any of these technologies at home, while only one percent of adults from households making $100,000 or more a year report a similar lack of access.
With fewer affordable options for online access at their disposal, Americans with lower incomes rely more on smartphones. As of early 2021, 27 percent of adults living in households earning less than $30,000 a year are smartphone-only internet users, meaning they lack broadband at home. This represents a substantial increase from 12 percent in 2013, according to the data. In contrast, only six percent of those living in households earning $100,000 or more fall into this category in 2021. These shares are statistically unchanged since 2019, when the Center last polled on this topic.
The disparity in online access is apparent in the “homework gap” – the divide between school-age children who have access to high-speed internet at home and those who don’t. In 2015, 35 percent of low-income households with school-age children did not have a broadband internet connection at home, according to Pew.
The digital divide gained more attention during the pandemic as much of daily life moved online, leaving low-income families more likely to face obstacles in navigating the increasing digital environment. For example, in April 2020, 59 percent of low-income parents who had children in schools that were remote due to the pandemic said their children would likely face at least one of three digital obstacles to their schooling, such as a lack of reliable internet at home, no computer at home, or needing to use a smartphone to complete schoolwork.
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