President Trump Called Digital Equity Act ‘Racist.’ Now Internet Money for Rural Americans Is Gone.

The work of digital navigators across the country was to be propped up by a $2.75 billion federal program that was abruptly canceled this spring. The halt came after President Donald Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that the Digital Equity Act was unconstitutional and pledged “no more woke handouts based on race!”  The law lists exactly whom the money should benefit, including low-income households, older residents, some incarcerated people, rural Americans, veterans, and members of racial or ethnic minority groups. Politicians, researchers, librarians, and advocates said defunding the program, along with other changes in federal broadband initiatives, jeopardizes efforts to help rural and underserved residents participate in the modern economy and lead healthier lives.  A KFF Health News analysis found that nearly 3 million people in America live in areas with shortages of medical professionals and where modern telehealth services are often inaccessible because of poor internet connections. The analysis found that in about 200 mostly rural counties where dead zones persist, residents live sicker and die earlier on average than people in the rest of the country. Access to high-speed internet is among a host of social factors, like food and safe housing, that help people lead healthier lives. “The internet provides this extra layer of resilience,” said Christina Filipovic, who leads the research for an initiative of the Institute for Business in the Global Context at Tufts University.  Caroline Stratton, the research director at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society, said the act’s funding allowed states to staff offices; identify existing high-speed internet programs, including those operating within other state agencies; and create plans to fill the gaps. “This sent folks out looking,” Stratton said, to see whether agencies in the state were already working on health improvement plans and to ask whether the broadband work could contribute and “actively help move the needle.”