The Income Digital Divide: Trends and Predictions for Levels of Internet Use

This article examines recent U.S. Census Bureau data to test the hypothesis that the diffusion of the Internet is becoming more rather than less polarized by family income in the United States. Using multiple logistic regression and other odds-based analyses to assess Internet access in the United States from 1997 to 2003, this analysis finds that the odds of access increased most rapidly for individuals at highest family income levels and most slowly for individuals with the lowest income levels. These differential rates of diffusion, combined with an overall slowing of the diffusion of Internet use since 2001, suggest that it may be 2009 before a majority of lowestincome Americans use the Internet. The slow diffusion among low-income groups is not apparent in comparable assessments of Internet diffusion in European countries.