Pew Research Center

34% of lower-income home broadband users have had trouble paying for their service amid COVID-19

Some 15% of home broadband users in the US say they have had trouble paying for their high-speed internet service during the coronavirus outbreak. That includes 34% of those with household incomes of less than $30,000 a year. A quarter of home broadband users with annual household incomes ranging from $30,000 to just under $50,000 say they have had trouble doing so in the pandemic, as have roughly one-in-ten (8%) with household incomes ranging from $50,000 to $74,999. There are also differences by Americans’ educational attainment.

Mobile Technology and Home Broadband 2021

Smartphone ownership (85%) and home broadband subscriptions (77%) have increased among American adults since 2019 – from 81% and 73% respectively. Though modest, both increases are statistically significant and come at a time when a majority of Americans say the internet has been important to them personally. And 91% of adults report having at least one of these technologies. A Pew Research Center survey also finds that some Americans have difficulties when trying to go online.

7% of Americans don’t use the internet. Who are they?

7% of US adults say they do not use the internet. Internet non-adoption is linked to a number of demographic variables, but is strongly connected to age – with older Americans continuing to be one of the least likely groups to use the internet. Today, 25% of adults ages 65 and older report never going online, compared with much smaller shares of adults under the age of 65. Educational attainment and household income are also indicators of a person’s likelihood to be offline.

Experts Say the ‘New Normal’ in 2025 Will Be Far More Tech-Driven, Presenting More Big Challenges

A new canvassing of experts in technology, communications and social change by Pew Research Center and Elon University’s Imagining the Internet Center. Asked to consider what life will be like in 2025 in the wake of the outbreak of the global pandemic and other crises in 2020, some 915 innovators, developers, business and policy leaders, researchers and activists responded.

What we’ve learned about Americans’ views of technology during the time of COVID-19

Over the course of the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States, Pew Research Center has studied Americans’ attitudes about the role and effectiveness of various technologies and their views about digital privacy and data collection as it relates to the pandemic. Here is what we found: