NTIA survey finds 13 million more Internet users by 2021

Digital inclusion

Poor and non-white households are even less able to access the Internet, the report said.

WASHINGTON, June 17, 2024 – A new government survey found that 13 million more Americans used the Internet in 2023 than in 2021, the largest increase in seven years. But historically disadvantaged households were still least able to access the Internet, according to the report.

National Telecommunications and Information Administration internet usage survey asks Americans every two years how they access the Internet. It has been conducted for 30 years in cooperation with the US Census Bureau.

The survey found that 83 percent of people aged 3 and over have some level of internet access as of November 2023, up from 80 percent in 2021.

The growth comes “in large part from segments of the population that have historically been more likely to find themselves on the wrong side of the digital divide.” Rafi GoldbergNTIA’s senior digital equity policy advisor wrote in a blog post announcing the poll results.

For example, the agency noted that 73 percent of households making less than $25,000 a year had Internet access according to the survey, up from 69 percent in 2021. For American Indians and Alaska Natives, the number went from 75 percent in 2021 to 83 percent in 2023.

The same group of low-income households, however, were less likely to have both landline and mobile connections, or no connection at all or relying solely on mobile devices. The agency said 54 percent of people in households earning less than $25,000 had home and mobile broadband, compared to 80 percent of those in households earning more than $100,000.

The NTIA survey also found that black, Hispanic and American Indian respondents were “substantially less likely” than white and Asian Americans to have access to a computer or tablet.

In 2023, 62 percent of black Americans used either, the agency said, compared to 72 percent of white and 71 percent of Asian respondents. The numbers were lower for Hispanics and American Indians.

“The disparities we find when we look beyond overall Internet use suggest that, while our country is making great strides toward getting everyone online in some way, the quality and experience of connectivity still varies widely,” the agency wrote.

The agency said it found that 12 percent of Americans live in households without an Internet connection, up from 14 percent in 2021. The U.S. has about 131 million households, according to Bureau of the Census.

NTIA has not released the full 2023 yet survey data publicly. The agency is also working on “new data products that will inform digital capital policy for many years to come,” Goldberg wrote.