Falling Through the Net
The Digital Divide for Minorites

Falling Through the Net: Defining the Digital Divide
Released July 8, 1999. Third report in the Falling Through the Net series on the Telecommunications and Information Technology Gap in America.

A PDF version of the report is also available for download (543k). (Adobe Acrobat Reader required)

Previous Reports in the Falling Through the Net Series

July 1998: Falling Through the Net II: New Data on the Digital Divide

July 1995: Falling Through the Net: A Survey of the "Have Nots" in Rural and Urban America

Partnerships for Bridging the Digital Divide

• Ameritech Digital Campuses
  Ameritech, National Urban League
• Oprah Goes Online
  Carsey Warner, Harpo Communications, Oxygen Media
• Urban Challenge
  3Com
• Digital Divide Clearinghouses
  America Online, Benton Foundation, National Urban League

Summary

The Commerce Department's National Telecommunication and Information Administration finds that access to the Internet has soared but the divide between the "information rich" and the "information poor" persists and continues to increase at an alarming rate, with the "information poor" being made up of black and Hispanic households.

"Falling Through the Net: Defining the Digital Divide" is the NTIA's third report on the technology gap in the United States.The NTIA's study found that access to computers and the Internet has soared, with computers in more than 40 percent of U.S. households and Internet access in 25 percent by the end of 1998.

But, a trend of significant disparities between certain demographic groups and regions continued or grew.

"Computer and Internet access varies widely based on such factors as income, education, race, and geography," says Larry Irving, NTIA assistant secretary for communication and information. "Households with incomes of more than $75,000 are more than 20 times as likely to have access to the Internet as those at the lowest income level and, regardless of income level, those living in rural areas lag significantly behind households in urban areas and central cities. Moreover, black and Hispanic households are approximately one-half as likely to own a computer as white households."

Between 1997 and 1998, the gap in household access to the Internet between blacks and whites and Hispanics and whites grew about 6 percentage points. The difference between whites and blacks is 21 percent; between whites and Hispanics, it's 20 percent, the report says. In the same period, the technology divide between those at the highest and lowest education levels increased 25 percent to a 46-percentage-point difference between the two groups.

Technology access "is now one of America's leading economic and civil rights issues, and we have to take concrete steps to redress the gap between the information haves and have-nots," Irving says.

In response, some high-tech companies are launching programs targeted to combat the "digital divide". These programs will include building "digital campuses",in five cities,Cleveland, Detroit, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, and Aurora, Illinois, to teach information technology skills. Other programs include a National Digital Divide Clearinghouse Web site to identify creative and innovative ways in which people are using technology, training projects for high school and college students, and networking products, training, and consulting services to 10 U.S. cities to improve their urban schools.