10 Percent of Americans Are Offline. Who Are They?

In the digital age, one in ten Americans are offline. Disconnected Americans tend to be older, have less education, a smaller annual income, and live in rural areas, according to a new report from Pew. About 27 percent of Americans who are 65 and older are not online, while about three in ten Americans who did not finish high school are offline. The rural and urban internet divide is significant, with 15 percent of rural Americans reportedly not on the internet, while 6 and 9 percent of suburban and urban Americans, respectively, do not go online.

It is unclear whether this is the result of an inability to access internet services or a disinterest in doing so, or a combination of the two. The U.S. government, spearheaded by the FCC, has been rolling out programs to encourage Americans in underserved communities to adopt the internet. For mobile internet coverage, there is a significant divide in 4G LTE coverage between the rural and urban United States, with 14 million rural Americans and 1.2 million Americans on Tribal land unbale to access 4G LTE services.