Bridging the Digital Divide: A Critical Moment to Modernize the Lifeline Program

Originally conceived under the Reagan administration, the Lifeline program was established to protect low-income Americans from having to choose between food, electricity, and essential communication in the form of phone service. While much has changed since 1985 – back then, a postage stamp cost $0.22 and Microsoft had just released Windows 1.0 – Lifeline remains the only federal program with the explicit goal of extending vital communications services to those in need. Now the program has the opportunity to shine once again as a bridge to connect the unconnected in an evolving digital age.

Needless to say, the way Americans communicate has evolved dramatically in the past thirty years. The advent of the Internet has not only wrought a sea change in what is defined as “essential communications,” from email to instant messaging to Skype calls, but also the significance of what it means to “be connected.” In the 1980s, while the phone was already indispensable in daily life, most Americans still got paper medical records from their doctors, job listings from newspapers, educational materials in print from schools and libraries, and paid their bills or applied for credit with the aforementioned postage stamps. Today, many of these activities have migrated online. Consequently, broadband Internet access is now “necessary for even basic participation in our society and economy,” to quote the Federal Communications Commission directly.

Earlier this year, in announcing its intent to modernize the program, the FCC declared that “it is time for a fundamental, comprehensive restructuring of the [Lifeline] program to meet today’s most pressing communications needs,” namely access to broadband. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has made it his mission to “reboot” the Lifeline program for the Internet age. At OTI, we strongly agree – last week, we filed comments in the FCC’s current Lifeline proceeding, making recommendations for how the program could work to extend equitable, high quality, and transparent broadband service to communities currently left stranded without.

The Lifeline subsidy was gradually expanded during the Bush administration to apply to mobile voice offerings, and the FCC is now proposing to allow Lifeline consumers to put their $9.25 subsidy toward standalone broadband Internet. We believe that America urgently needs these proposed reforms to become reality.

Lack of Internet access, a problem often referred to as the “digital divide,” has well-documented material consequences impacting health, wealth, and educational opportunities of those affected. Moreover, our failure to bring everyone online does not affect all Americans equally. According to the Pew Research Center, only 54 percent of households with an annual income of less than $30,000 per year have broadband, compared to 88 percent for $75,000 or more. Communities of color, seniors, and those with a high school diploma or less are also much more likely to lack access. This gap between the digital haves and have-nots perpetuates income inequality and dampens economic growth across all socioeconomic strata: without access to the Internet, an American already struggling with unmet expenses may be even less likely to ultimately escape cycles of poverty. 

Perhaps most insidiously, given the power of modern communications tools, lack of Internet access also diminishes an individual’s agency and voice. The Digital CultureSHIFT, a landmark report published by the Center for Media Justice, recently underscored the role of the Internet as a singular platform to enhance political power. Particularly for minority and disadvantaged groups, online organizing and lobbying is a central pipeline for tangible social change. For example, consider how a born-digital social movement like Black Lives Matter helped push contemporary issues of race equality and police violence to the forefront of national consciousness, generating waves of subsequent advocacy both on- and offline.

Reflecting upon the persistent disparities in broadband access, the CMJ report highlights how the “false choice between affordable service and self-representation” is a painful reality that harms many low-income Americans, pointing to a crucial but sometimes underappreciated facet of this discussion: the digital divide is a civil rights issue. The Internet now serves as a “gateway” resource that enables acts of survival and public representation; as such, Internet access is now a precondition for exercising one’s full rights of citizenship in modern America.

As far back as 1996, scholars observing the Internet posited that access to such a powerful information channel could influence one’s life chances, and in subsequent years, further research has warned how stratified access to the Internet and related technologies may even contribute to systematic and cumulative social inequities. Noting “record highs in American poverty and an expanding racial wealth gap,” the CMJ report affirms that “digital discrimination is a cost many communities can’t afford,” and that “these arenas of change-making—one for the right and power to communicate, the other for the right and power to live—are not separate or distinct.”

Modernizing Lifeline to reduce barriers of access as well as strengthen minimum standards for Internet service for low-income households resonates strongly with the guiding American ideal of equal opportunity for all. Just like Lifeline’s original mandate embraced the idea that nobody should have to choose between paying for vital phone service and putting food on the table, no American today should be forced to make such “pound-of-flesh” decisions about Internet connectivity.

What’s more, the low-income Americans who might be affected by the proposed Lifeline changes come in many shapes and sizes. A disabled veteran might begin to participate in a telehealth programs thanks to affordable Internet service, and a working single mother whose child had previously asked for Internet for their homework may also be able to search online for further savings on childcare or groceries. Lifeline reforms that seek to make high-quality, broadband Internet more affordable would undoubtedly serve diverse groups of Americans in many walks of life.

OTI applauds the FCC’s commitment to increasing both access and affordability, and as the Commission acts to adjust this important program to truly make it a Lifeline for the 21st century, we urge the Commission to reflect on the program’s enduring mission in the face of societal and technological change. Connectivity is not just about economic impact. Connectivity is not just about social justice. Connectivity is about the fundamental ability to thrive, and Lifeline reforms should work so that Americans of all incomes have a fair shot at doing so.