Poverty, more than geography, determines who gets online in America

Internet adoption in the United States has increased significantly in the last few years, but the map of who gets online still falls along divisions of geography and income. In an attempt to get a better picture of these disparities, the White House Council of Economic Advisers has released a new report on the so-called digital divide. The report uses data from the Census’ 2013 American Community Survey and the National Broadband Map. Segmenting the country into regions with 100,000 residents, the report found that in the most affluent sectors, 80 to 90 percent of households have Internet at home. In the regions with the lowest median income, only about 50 percent do.

The map gives a more detailed look at the inequalities of Internet use, and income is one of the strongest determining factors. Many rural areas have high adoption rates while poorer urban neighborhoods have low ones. A 90-year-old in the top income quartile is more likely to have an Internet connection than a person of any age in the bottom quartile. Geography plays a role too, and at first glance, the national map seems to paint a picture of rural and urban division. Densely populated regions have higher rates of Internet adoption, while large swaths of the rural South and Southwest lag behind. However, the Great Plains and sparsely populated parts of Montana and and North Dakota also have high rates of adoption, and for such a dispersed country, the US does respectably: Norway and Switzerland are the only two members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development with both higher rates of Internet use and a larger share of their population in rural areas, according to the report.