Disconnected in Maryland: Statewide Data Show the Racial and Economic Underpinnings of the Digital Divide

This report takes stock of digital inclusion in Maryland by examining two digital access tools that enable robust online access. The first is wireline high-speed internet subscriptions at home. The other is whether a household has a working desktop, laptop, or tablet computer. Analysis of household adoption for home wireline internet service and computing devices shows that:

• Some 520,000 Maryland households do not subscribe to wireline broadband service at home. That comes to 23% of homes lacking service.
• Approximately 391,000 Maryland homes do not have a desktop or laptop computer, or 18% of all households.
• Close to 290,000 Maryland households have neither a desktop, laptop, nor tablet computing device in their homes. That is 13% of households without these digital access tools.

Gaps in the adoption of digital tools fall heavily along three (non-mutually exclusive) categories:

1. Geography: Two-thirds of Maryland households lacking in digital tools such as home wireline broadband connections and computers live in the state’s metropolitan counties or Baltimore City.
2. Race: 40% of all Marylanders without wireline broadband, or 206,000 households, are African American and the figures are similar for computer ownership of any kind (i.e., desktop, laptop, or tablet).
3. Income: Marylanders living in the poorest households are about half as likely to have wireline broadband at home than highincome households. Overall, nearly threequarters of all disconnected Maryland households are those below the state’s median income