The Federal Reserve Bank of New York today released a report, “Digital Equity in the U.S. Northeast, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands,” mapping broadband cost, speed, and availability for those areas between 2020 and 2023. The report finds that the rural, lower income, and tribal communities in the areas studied are most affected by a lack of broadband access, with tribal lands and rural communities having the slowest download and upload speeds.
The report finds the lowest-cost broadband available can be as high as 2% of median income in the rural areas the report covers as well as parts of New York City, including the Bronx, Upper Manhattan, the Lower East Side, and Eastern Brooklyn. By comparison, researchers say households typically spend around 3% of their income on utilities.
“Broadband is sometimes so expensive, as a share of median income, that lower-income households may be facing trade-offs between broadband and other monthly utilities,” said Ambika Nair, a community development research analyst at the New York Fed and an author of the report.
The authors find that internet speeds reported by internet service providers are often higher than the speeds reported by users who conduct speed tests. This discrepancy is largest for Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
High-speed internet is important for access to services including telehealth, online banking, benefits enrollment, and homework. But an estimated 12% of Americans did not have high-speed access in 2021. Legislation, including the 2021 Digital Equity Act, has focused on expanding broadband service to populations that lack it, including rural communities and aging populations. The report’s findings were originally presented to teams from the Northeast and the Islands preparing proposals, under the legislation, to win grants to expand access gaps in their states and territories.
The report was developed as part of the New York Fed's Community Development efforts, which have three areas of focus: health, household financial well-being, and climate risk.
