Staying connected

A last-ditch bipartisan effort to save the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) — a government initiative that subsidizes home broadband for more than 20 million low-income households — could soon hit Congress, according to the WSJ, just as funding for the scheme looks set to run dry.

The proposal to pump a further $7B into the program would extend the stipends, issued as $30-75 vouchers towards monthly home Wi-Fi bills, until the end of the year. The scheme has been praised for keeping seniors, minorities, and veterans (almost 50% of households that benefit are military families) online across the US.

Given how essential the internet now is to modern life, America remains worryingly uneven in its adoption of home broadband. According to a set of surveys that Pew Research Center has been running for the last 23 years, just 1% of American adults had a home broadband subscription in 2000; last year, 80% said the same. However, that growth hasn’t been mirrored across all income groups, with only 57% of adults in households where annual income is below $30K reporting a subscription to broadband at home late last year… and that was with the ACP in place.

Despite a reasonable amount of cross-aisle support, injecting more cash into the ACP has proven difficult. While Congress enacted the ~$14B ACP as part of Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law in 2021, the president’s request for a supplementary $6B to extend the scheme last October hasn’t gone anywhere. If the same fate befalls this latest bid, millions of Americans could lose access to the internet at home, or be forced to cut spending elsewhere.