The Role of the Digital Divide in Poverty

Of the many points that Matthew Desmond makes about the impact that the lack of affordable housing has on the low-income families living in Milwaukee that he names in his 2016 book, Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, the one that may have gotten lost, in his examining the dozens and dozens of available apartments these families call or visit in seeking an address to call their own, is that they conduct these housing searches without using the Internet. Statistically, Desmond notes in Evicted that “only 15 percent of black renters looking for housing relied on the Internet” (245) while “roughly half of white renters relied on the Internet” (384).

Desmond does not delve into why so few black renters use the Internet to search for housing. The racial difference in Internet use here is a corresponding symptom of the “digital divide”, which is playing an ever-growing role in the lives of low-income families living in poverty. A computer in the home with broadband Internet access can no longer be considered a luxury, for now it hurts those who cannot afford — and therefore don’t know how to use. Limited availability means limited opportunity to develop digital skills and literacy.

Specifically, John B. Horrigan and Maeve Duggan (2015) noted in the Pew Research Center report, Home Broadband 2015, that those who “have limited online access options tend to be younger, lower-income, and are more likely to be non-white”.