- As the novel coronavirus continues to spread, many companies, school districts, and universities are requiring people to work from home or learn remotely.
- This may be a problem for US cities with lower rates of broadband internet penetration at home.
- Using US Census data, Business Insider found the metro areas in America with the lowest shares of households with broadband internet access and computers in their homes.
- Five of the 17 metro areas with the lowest shares were located in Texas, including Victoria and McAllen.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
As more cases of coronavirus are confirmed across the US and more states enforce state lockdowns, more and more Americans are working or learning from their homes.
Working from home regularly is a new work style for many Americans. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, about 29% of Americans could do their work at home in 2017-2018 and 25% of Americans did their work at home sometimes.
A change to remote work and learning to help minimize the spread of the coronavirus and keep people safe might be a problem for some Americans. Not every child or household in America has access to internet or a computer at home to do their work or partake in a virtual school lesson.
The devices and online applications that are typically being used to help with remote work and learning require different amounts of broadband that not all Americans equally have access to, according to Popular Science.
The Wall Street Journal reported an Associated Press data analysis of US Census data that showed 17% of US students don’t have a computer and 18% don’t have broadband internet access at home.
The Wall Street Journal article also reported that Northshore School District in Seattle “had to lend out computers to more than 2,600 homes and provide many with wireless hot spots as well.”
Additionally, there are differences among demographic groups in the share of households with internet subscriptions or computers.
According to 2018 US Census data, 5% of white American households and 8% of black American households have no computers. Of the households with a computer, 89% of white Americans have an internet subscription and 82% of black Americans have an internet subscription.
Not only are there demographic differences, but there is also a geographic digital divide across the US. 92% of households in Colorado Springs, Colorado; Boulder, Colorado; Washington, DC; and Ann Arbor, Michigan; have an internet subscription. However, many cities have far more households without internet access in their homes. The average share of households without an internet subscription among US metro areas is 16%.
Business Insider used data from 2018 Census American Community Survey at the metro area level to find which cities could be most affected by an increase in families commonly working or studying from home.
We created an overall index where we averaged the share of households in each metro area that have a computer at home and the share of households that have a broadband internet subscription. We ranked the metros and found which ones scored the lowest on that combined average.
Of the 17 lowest scoring metros, multiple metro areas across the South in states like Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico, and Alabama were at the bottom of the list.
Read on to find out which cities could be most affected by ongoing working and studying from home requirements, along with their share of households without a computer and share of households without a broadband internet subscription.
