Modernizing How We Assess Broadband Affordability

Best practice methods for assessing affordability developed and endorsed by academic and government affordability experts can provide much greater precision in assessing need thereby enabling more informed and more targeted digital equity interventions. However, recent experience in Washington state has revealed that few of us in the digital equity realm are yet comfortable applying these methods, or, indeed, are even aware of them. To clarify the problem with current methods and the possibility for improvement, we focus on one key component of digital equity—affordable broadband. Millions of Americans fall between the somewhat arbitrary and inconsistent guidelines for prevailing digital equity interventions. For example, the Affordable Connectivity Program has provided subsidized internet service to households at 200 percent of the Official Poverty Measure (OPM). However, affordability experts looking at Washington state in 2023 found 225,677 Washington state households were making more than 200 percent of the OPM, yet were not making enough to cover basic necessities such as food and housing. The same analysis applied across the US has similar results, with millions of households found to be falling between current program guidelines and actual self-sufficiency.