Anyone willing to pay for it can get access to fast internet, right? Not exactly.
Low income neighborhoods — those with median household incomes below $34,800 — are five times more likely not to have access to broadband internet than neighborhoods with a median income above $80,700.
In an increasingly connected economy, internet inequality is more than an inconvenience. For many households in the U.S. tools like online jobs, health care and education sites and banking services are out of reach.
“It would be like when you are in a hole, it would be that nice rope ladder being lowered down to you so you can get yourself out,” Curtis Brown Jr. told the Center for Public Integrity. “That’s exactly what it would feel like for us.”
