vox--2020-09-09--New audio proves it: Trump deliberately deceived America about the coronavirus

President Donald Trump admitted to publicly downplaying the real threat of Covid-19 for weeks , even as cities and states shut down and more Americans fell sick , according to excerpts and audio recordings from reporter Bob Woodward ’ s forthcoming book Rage .
“ I wanted to always play it down , ” Trump said on March 19 .
“ I still like playing it down , because I don ’ t want to create a panic.
” In several interviews with Woodward , Trump said he was aware of the threat of the novel coronavirus as early as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ risk the disease presented well into March , when the US ’ s epidemic took off .
( CNN published audio clips from the interviews . )
On February 7 , Trump told Woodward , “ This is deadly stuff.
” He told Woodward that it was five times as deadly as the flu .
He acknowledged that the virus “ goes through air , ” adding , “ That ’ s always tougher than the touch .
You know , the touch , you don ’ t have to touch things , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ just breathe the air , and that ’ s how it ’ s passed.
” Later that month , Trump claimed in public that the virus would disappear “ like a miracle.
” He also said that “ you have 15 people [ with the coronavirus ] , and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero.
” In early March , he also publicly compared the coronavirus to the flu , arguing that Covid-19 hadn ’ t killed as many people in the US @ @ @ @ @ @ @ March 19 , Trump acknowledged to Woodward that Covid-19 could hit young people as well as old people .
That conversation is when he said he still wanted to downplay the threat .
By then , it was perfectly clear that the virus was a real threat in the US .
Cases and deaths were starting to rise in the New York City region in particular .
San Francisco was already under lockdown .
Trump was holding daily press briefings about the virus .
On the same day he told Woodward he downplayed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ administration having everything under control .
Later in March , Trump insisted in public that the US would be able to go back to normal and reopen by Easter Sunday in April .
“ You ’ ll have packed churches all over our country , ” Trump said on March 24 .
“ I think it ’ ll be a beautiful time.
” Trump told Woodward that his intent was to avoid a panic .
But experts say that Trump ’ s response to the virus — particularly the magical thinking that colored @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in America .
That fostered a sense of complacency among the public and other leaders , building resistance to necessary public health measures against Covid-19 like social distancing , testing , and masking .
Once states began locking down , Trump pushed them to reopen too early and too quickly — to “ LIBERATE ” themselves from economic calamity .
After his administration suggested people wear masks in public , Trump claimed it was a personal choice , refused to wear a mask himself , and said people wear masks to spite him @ @ @ @ @ @ @ even dangerous treatments , at one point musing about people injecting bleach to treat Covid-19 .
And he was slow to expand US testing capacity , arguing that more testing made the US look bad by revealing more cases ; he instead punted the issue to local , state , and private actors unequipped for the full job .
“ It begins in many ways , and you could argue it ends in many ways , with the Trump administration , ” Ashish Jha , the faculty director of the Harvard Global Health @ @ @ @ @ @ @ If George W. Bush had been president , if John McCain had been president , if Mitt Romney had been president , this would have looked very different.
” This continued , based on Woodward ’ s reporting and the president ’ s admission in audio recordings , well after the threat of Covid-19 was clear even to Trump .
The result : The US is doing about seven times worse than the median developed country , ranking in the bottom 20 percent for Covid-19 deaths among wealthy nations .
If America had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 100,000 more Americans would likely be alive today .
Trump , however , has admitted no responsibility for all of this .
In his last interview with Woodward in July , Trump said , “ The virus has nothing to do with me .
It ’ s not my fault .
… China let the damn virus out.
” Help keep Vox free for all Millions turn to Vox each month to understand what ’ s happening in the news , from the coronavirus crisis to a racial reckoning to what is , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ election of our lifetimes .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
But our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn .
Even when the economy and the news advertising market recovers , your support will be a critical part of sustaining our resource-intensive work , and helping everyone make sense of an increasingly chaotic world .
Contribute today from as little as $ 3 .

President Donald Trump admitted to publicly downplaying the real threat of Covid-19 for weeks, even as cities and states shut down and more Americans fell sick, according to excerpts and audio recordings from reporter Bob Woodward’s forthcoming book Rage.
“I wanted to always play it down,” Trump said on March 19. “I still like playing it down, because I don’t want to create a panic.”
In several interviews with Woodward, Trump said he was aware of the threat of the novel coronavirus as early as January, and continued downplaying the true risk the disease presented well into March, when the US’s epidemic took off. (CNN published audio clips from the interviews.)
On February 7, Trump told Woodward, “This is deadly stuff.” He told Woodward that it was five times as deadly as the flu. He acknowledged that the virus “goes through air,” adding, “That’s always tougher than the touch. You know, the touch, you don’t have to touch things, right? But the air, you just breathe the air, and that’s how it’s passed.”
Later that month, Trump claimed in public that the virus would disappear “like a miracle.” He also said that “you have 15 people [with the coronavirus], and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero.” In early March, he also publicly compared the coronavirus to the flu, arguing that Covid-19 hadn’t killed as many people in the US as the common flu does.
On March 19, Trump acknowledged to Woodward that Covid-19 could hit young people as well as old people. That conversation is when he said he still wanted to downplay the threat.
By then, it was perfectly clear that the virus was a real threat in the US. Cases and deaths were starting to rise in the New York City region in particular. San Francisco was already under lockdown. Trump was holding daily press briefings about the virus. On the same day he told Woodward he downplayed the crisis, he boasted about his administration having everything under control.
Later in March, Trump insisted in public that the US would be able to go back to normal and reopen by Easter Sunday in April. “You’ll have packed churches all over our country,” Trump said on March 24. “I think it’ll be a beautiful time.”
Trump told Woodward that his intent was to avoid a panic. But experts say that Trump’s response to the virus — particularly the magical thinking that colored his public comments — fueled the outbreak in America. That fostered a sense of complacency among the public and other leaders, building resistance to necessary public health measures against Covid-19 like social distancing, testing, and masking.
Once states began locking down, Trump pushed them to reopen too early and too quickly — to “LIBERATE” themselves from economic calamity. After his administration suggested people wear masks in public, Trump claimed it was a personal choice, refused to wear a mask himself, and said people wear masks to spite him. He also hyped up unproven and even dangerous treatments, at one point musing about people injecting bleach to treat Covid-19. And he was slow to expand US testing capacity, arguing that more testing made the US look bad by revealing more cases; he instead punted the issue to local, state, and private actors unequipped for the full job.
“It begins in many ways, and you could argue it ends in many ways, with the Trump administration,” Ashish Jha, the faculty director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, previously told me. “If George W. Bush had been president, if John McCain had been president, if Mitt Romney had been president, this would have looked very different.”
This continued, based on Woodward’s reporting and the president’s admission in audio recordings, well after the threat of Covid-19 was clear even to Trump.
The result: The US is doing about seven times worse than the median developed country, ranking in the bottom 20 percent for Covid-19 deaths among wealthy nations. If America had the same death rate as Canada, 100,000 more Americans would likely be alive today.
Trump, however, has admitted no responsibility for all of this. In his last interview with Woodward in July, Trump said, “The virus has nothing to do with me. It’s not my fault. … China let the damn virus out.”


vox--2020-09-09--Trump is making a mockery of public health. His rally in North Carolina demonstrated it.

New daily coronavirus cases and deaths were trending upward in North Carolina heading into Labor Day weekend .
But you certainly wouldn ’ t know that by watching President Donald Trump ’ s rally at Smith Reynolds Airport in Winston-Salem on Tuesday .
Trump claimed during his speech that there were 15,000 people there .
That was an exaggeration , but Jonah Kaplan of ABC 11 in Raleigh reported that the crowd of several thousand was the largest he ’ d seen in the state since the beginning of the pandemic .
While the science about coronavirus transmission at large @ @ @ @ @ @ @ crowd of this size assembling during a pandemic would be risky no matter what .
But making matters worse was the fact that attendees weren ’ t distancing from one another .
Very few people wore masks , violating the state ’ s mask requirement .
Outdoor events in North Carolina are supposed to be capped at 50 people .
Trump , however , made a mockery of Gov .
Roy Cooper ( D ) in particular and public health guidelines in general .
“ We call you peaceful protesters .
You know @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ Because they have rules in these Democrat-run states that if you campaign you can ’ t have more than five people .
They did that for me.
” Unsurprisingly , the coronavirus pandemic wasn ’ t a major focus of Trump ’ s speech .
Instead , he lied about the economy , claiming “ we ’ ve never had so many jobs ” when in fact there are fewer jobs in the country right now than when he took office ; whined about how the media treats him ( “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Abraham Lincoln got the worst press .
I said , there ’ s no way he got worse than me.
” ) , and mispronounced Kamala Harris ’ s name while repeating it over and over like some sort of incantation .
But when he did talk about the pandemic that has now claimed almost 190,000 American lives — including nearly 3,000 in North Carolina — Trump made clear that his thinking hasn ’ t really evolved since last February and March , when he ignored warnings from public health experts and repeatedly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ its own .
Trump is trying to construct an alternate reality where the coronavirus is little more than a historical footnote New daily coronavirus cases in the US are currently hovering around 40,000 .
Daily deaths are slowly trending downward from their second-wave peak in early August but have still been over 1,000 three days already this month .
In short , the coronavirus isn ’ t anywhere near under control .
Yet on Tuesday , Trump described the pandemic as all but over and called on all governors to immediately reopen their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ Your state should be open , ” Trump said to wild cheers .
“ Even if you look statistically — it ’ s you , it ’ s Michigan , it ’ s a couple of others ... they wan na open .
They wan na have football .
They wan na have their schools open .
And it ’ s a shame what ’ s going on.
” Trump went on to characterize public health measures that officials are using to try to slow the spread of the coronavirus as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I ’ ll tell you what — on November 4 , every one of those states will be open , ” Trump said .
“ They ’ re doing it for political reasons .
They think that by hurting the economy , by keeping all these store owners and all these people that work in shops and stores and buildings and offices , they think by keeping them and hurting them , they ’ re hurting the economy.
” In reality , what ’ s hurting the economy is the combination of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ politicians like Trump to get it under control .
And it ’ s possible the rally in North Carolina — which was at least the fourth event in recent weeks that Trump held in front of a packed audience without social distancing and with very few masks — will end up doing harm as well .
The Winston-Salem rally came just hours after the release of a study by the Center for Health Economics & Policy Studies at San Diego State University that found that last month ’ s Sturgis Motorcycle Rally not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of people with the virus , but will potentially involve more than $ 12 billion in health care costs .
Trump ’ s latest rally in North Carolina wasn ’ t nearly as large as Sturgis , but if even a few of the people in attendance were infected with the virus , they could have spread it to others who will then take it back to their communities , possibly seeding future outbreaks .
Trump should know better The recent batch of Trump rallies were the first since June 20 , when @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Tulsa , Oklahoma , that ended up being a disaster .
The Trump campaign ’ s decision to ignore warnings from public health experts likely fueled a spike in coronavirus cases in the area .
“ In the past few days , we ’ ve seen almost 500 new cases , and we had several large events just over two weeks ago , so I guess we just connect the dots , ” Tulsa City/County Health Department Director Dr. Bruce Dart said days after the rally , according to the Associated Press @ @ @ @ @ @ @ supporter who was photographed at the rally without a mask , contracted Covid-19 after the rally and died .
Though Cain ’ s travel schedule makes it impossible to know exactly where and when he became infected , the rally was symptomatic of the broader problem .
Instead of doing everything possible to keep people safe , Trump campaign workers were filmed removing thousands of “ Do Not Sit Here , Please !
” stickers meant to encourage rallygoers to social distance .
On June 20 , 32,025 new coronavirus cases were reported @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , 31,061 were reported .
In short , the state of the pandemic is basically unimproved — and things could get worse in the weeks to come as schools reopen .
What has changed , however , is the proximity to November ’ s election .
Trump has clearly calculated that in crucial states like North Carolina , his best strategy is to declare mission accomplished when it comes to the coronavirus and hope his supporters continue to buy what he ’ s selling .
Help keep Vox free for all Millions turn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s happening in the news , from the coronavirus crisis to a racial reckoning to what is , quite possibly , the most consequential presidential election of our lifetimes .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
But our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn .
Even when the economy and the news advertising market recovers , your support will be a critical part of sustaining our resource-intensive work @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an increasingly chaotic world .
Contribute today from as little as $ 3 .

New daily coronavirus cases and deaths were trending upward in North Carolina heading into Labor Day weekend. But you certainly wouldn’t know that by watching President Donald Trump’s rally at Smith Reynolds Airport in Winston-Salem on Tuesday.
Trump claimed during his speech that there were 15,000 people there. That was an exaggeration, but Jonah Kaplan of ABC 11 in Raleigh reported that the crowd of several thousand was the largest he’d seen in the state since the beginning of the pandemic.
While the science about coronavirus transmission at large outdoor events remains somewhat unsettled, a crowd of this size assembling during a pandemic would be risky no matter what. But making matters worse was the fact that attendees weren’t distancing from one another. Very few people wore masks, violating the state’s mask requirement.
Hello from Winston-Salem, NC where hundreds await @realDonaldTrump at an outdoor rally. Attendees have their temperature checked as they arrive, & signs encourage mask-wearing. I’d say ~10% are wearing masks. No distancing to speak of. Outdoor events in NC are capped at 50 people pic.twitter.com/zKKMQa61v4 — Garrett Haake (@GarrettHaake) September 8, 2020
Outdoor events in North Carolina are supposed to be capped at 50 people. Trump, however, made a mockery of Gov. Roy Cooper (D) in particular and public health guidelines in general.
“We call you peaceful protesters. You know why?” he told his audience. “Because they have rules in these Democrat-run states that if you campaign you can’t have more than five people. They did that for me.”
Trump: "We call you peaceful protesters. You know why? Because they have rules in these Democrat-run states that if you campaign you can't have more than 5 people. They did that for me." pic.twitter.com/Nr7JBL6re4 — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 8, 2020
Unsurprisingly, the coronavirus pandemic wasn’t a major focus of Trump’s speech. Instead, he lied about the economy, claiming “we’ve never had so many jobs” when in fact there are fewer jobs in the country right now than when he took office; whined about how the media treats him (“You know, they used to say Abraham Lincoln got the worst press. I said, there’s no way he got worse than me.”), and mispronounced Kamala Harris’s name while repeating it over and over like some sort of incantation.
But when he did talk about the pandemic that has now claimed almost 190,000 American lives — including nearly 3,000 in North Carolina — Trump made clear that his thinking hasn’t really evolved since last February and March, when he ignored warnings from public health experts and repeatedly insisted the pandemic would go away on its own.
Trump is trying to construct an alternate reality where the coronavirus is little more than a historical footnote
New daily coronavirus cases in the US are currently hovering around 40,000. Daily deaths are slowly trending downward from their second-wave peak in early August but have still been over 1,000 three days already this month.
In short, the coronavirus isn’t anywhere near under control. Yet on Tuesday, Trump described the pandemic as all but over and called on all governors to immediately reopen their economies and schools to start in-person instruction.
“Your state should be open,” Trump said to wild cheers. “Even if you look statistically — it’s you, it’s Michigan, it’s a couple of others ... they wanna open. They wanna have football. They wanna have their schools open. And it’s a shame what’s going on.”
Trump went on to characterize public health measures that officials are using to try to slow the spread of the coronavirus as a political conspiracy against him.
“I’ll tell you what — on November 4, every one of those states will be open,” Trump said. “They’re doing it for political reasons. They think that by hurting the economy, by keeping all these store owners and all these people that work in shops and stores and buildings and offices, they think by keeping them and hurting them, they’re hurting the economy.”
Even with coronavirus cases rising in a number of states, Trump calls for all Democratic governors to fully reopen their schools and economies. He also suggests public health measures are part of a political conspiracy against him. pic.twitter.com/asXJa1qjsQ — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 8, 2020
In reality, what’s hurting the economy is the combination of the pandemic and the inability or unwillingness of politicians like Trump to get it under control. And it’s possible the rally in North Carolina — which was at least the fourth event in recent weeks that Trump held in front of a packed audience without social distancing and with very few masks — will end up doing harm as well.
The Winston-Salem rally came just hours after the release of a study by the Center for Health Economics & Policy Studies at San Diego State University that found that last month’s Sturgis Motorcycle Rally not only could have infected hundreds of thousands of people with the virus, but will potentially involve more than $12 billion in health care costs. Trump’s latest rally in North Carolina wasn’t nearly as large as Sturgis, but if even a few of the people in attendance were infected with the virus, they could have spread it to others who will then take it back to their communities, possibly seeding future outbreaks.
Trump should know better
The recent batch of Trump rallies were the first since June 20, when he held one at the BOK Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, that ended up being a disaster. The Trump campaign’s decision to ignore warnings from public health experts likely fueled a spike in coronavirus cases in the area.
“In the past few days, we’ve seen almost 500 new cases, and we had several large events just over two weeks ago, so I guess we just connect the dots,” Tulsa City/County Health Department Director Dr. Bruce Dart said days after the rally, according to the Associated Press.
Herman Cain, a prominent Trump supporter who was photographed at the rally without a mask, contracted Covid-19 after the rally and died. Though Cain’s travel schedule makes it impossible to know exactly where and when he became infected, the rally was symptomatic of the broader problem. Instead of doing everything possible to keep people safe, Trump campaign workers were filmed removing thousands of “Do Not Sit Here, Please!” stickers meant to encourage rallygoers to social distance.
On June 20, 32,025 new coronavirus cases were reported in the country. On September 6, 31,061 were reported. In short, the state of the pandemic is basically unimproved — and things could get worse in the weeks to come as schools reopen.
What has changed, however, is the proximity to November’s election. Trump has clearly calculated that in crucial states like North Carolina, his best strategy is to declare mission accomplished when it comes to the coronavirus and hope his supporters continue to buy what he’s selling.


vox--2020-09-10--What’s really going on with the economy

What’s really going on with the economy

The economy is growing again , with employers adding millions of workers to payrolls per month .
The unemployment rate — which briefly hit levels far higher than the worst of the Great Recession — is now falling rapidly .
Fears that economic collapse would spiral out of control after the spring shutdowns have not been realized .
Even more strikingly , the fact that the United States has failed to meaningfully contain the Covid-19 pandemic is proving to be less of an impediment to economic growth than one might have thought .
Six months ago , public health experts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ set up robust surveillance testing , contact tracing , case isolation , and rigorous mask usage , a version of economic normalcy could return without incurring grave risks to human life .
Looking across the globe , this seems to be correct — many countries have achieved much better outcomes in terms of less loss of life without incurring any clear economic cost relative to the United States .
At the same time , the view ( once widespread among economists ) that failing to control the outbreak would necessarily have dire economic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ overstated .
While the US public health situation looks terrible in an international context , the economy is going okay .
“ We ’ re witnessing the fastest labor market recovery from any economic crisis in history , by far , ” President Donald Trump said at a Friday briefing room appearance to brag about the results .
“ This year , the United States has seen the smallest economic contraction of any major Western nation , and we are recovering at a much faster rate than any other nation.
” This is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from Trump ) a bit misleading , but the basic message that the economic news is good is correct .
But that ’ s largely due to the success of the CARES Act , many of the key provisions of which have expired .
The country now faces a very uncertain fall , where the only clear thing in the data is that both the bond market and the Federal Reserve would welcome more stimulus .
The economic disaster this past spring wasn ’ t so bad The key to understanding the current @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that , despite headlines warning of unemployment rising to the highest level since the Great Depression , things were not quite as bad as they seemed .
The second quarter of 2020 was just a very weird time , macroeconomically speaking .
• On the one hand , aggregate economic output shrank at the highest pace on record as huge swaths of the economy shut down , either under orders from state governments or else ( like airlines and hotels ) simply because demand wasn ’ t there .
• But household income @ @ @ @ @ @ @ generous unemployment insurance and nearly every adult got $ 1,200 from the federal government .
In humanitarian terms , this meant that despite a very stressful situation for essentially everyone , we did not see widespread hunger , mass evictions , or other social hardship .
People had money for the things they needed , but spending on non-necessities went into the toilet .
Lots of people increased their savings ( less eating out , less driving , no movies or sports tickets or vacations ) , so the economy even built up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ May and June pursuing a strategy to suppress the virus , we might have been able to reopen most things in July and August and enjoyed a strong economic rebound without too much danger to public health .
That didn ’ t happen .
But despite the lost opportunity to contain the virus , the economy did rebound sharply once restrictions began to lift .
The CARES Act not only met urgent humanitarian needs during the period of maximum business closures , it also led the economy to behave like a bouncy ball @ @ @ @ @ @ @ household finances did not , so when it became easier to go out and spend money , people did — and rapid economic growth ensued .
Trump ’ s boasting that “ our economy and jobs are doing really well ” rings a bit hollow in light of the reality that we ’ ve gotten back only half the jobs lost earlier in the pandemic , and the 8.4 percent unemployment rate is still awfully high .
But the current job growth really is fast .
In partisan terms , Republicans want to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ growing really fast ) , and Democrats want to talk about levels ( output and employment are still below where they were a year ago ) .
The bigger issue , however , is that even the springiest ball doesn ’ t regain its old heights .
As this is a very unusual economic situation , traditional labor market indicators aren ’ t necessarily as informative as economists might like them to be .
One boring technical problem is that people who are on temporary furlough from their jobs are supposed to report @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Labor Statistics surveyor calls .
But many people in this situation , not being experts on labor market statistics , are evidently not doing this .
So the real unemployment rate is higher than the official one .
A more serious conceptual issue is that ideally , it would be useful to distinguish between people who are unemployed because they work at a movie theater in a city that won ’ t let movie theaters open and people who ’ ve actually lost their jobs on a permanent basis .
Jason Furman , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Government who served as a top economic adviser in the Obama administration , constructs two alternate unemployment series : a “ realistic ” one that accounts for misclassification , and a “ full recall ” one that asks what would happen if everyone on furlough came back to work tomorrow .
The point of all this is that the improvement in the labor market situation has largely been the result of furloughed workers going back on the job .
But while temporary furloughs continue to be a factor in the economy , Furman @ @ @ @ @ @ @ temporary layoff returned to work very quickly , the United States would still have a recessionary level of unemployment for some time to come.
” But just as the spring economic disaster wasn ’ t as bad as the headlines suggested , the recovery doesn ’ t necessarily mean that everyone ’ s living standards are going up .
Many low-wage workers are worse off than they were this spring Back in the spring , household income rose even as GDP and employment tumbled .
Some of that was thanks to the $ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ received .
But the biggest reason is that with unemployment insurance enhanced by $ 600 per week , many low-wage workers were actually seeing more income in coronavirus benefits than they ever earned on the job .
The business closures had a disproportionate impact on low-wage service workers ( most white-collar office jobs continued , just from home ) , and the result was that a large majority of people who found themselves temporarily unemployed were actually better off than when they were working .
University of Chicago researchers found that under the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were “ eligible for benefits which exceed lost wages ” and the median UI recipient saw their income rise by about a third .
Today , those CARES Act benefits have vanished .
That means the remaining unemployed workers are seeing their income go down a lot relative to where it was during the spring and summer .
But most of the workers who are back on the job have also seen their incomes fall as CARES benefits expire .
In other words , the main beneficiaries of the return to job growth @ @ @ @ @ @ @ actually getting the jobs .
As an economically secure white-collar professional , my life has gotten a lot better since the depths of the downturn .
Parks and playgrounds are open again , as is every store in town for a brief masked pop-in .
The weather ’ s nice , and I can get a meal outside at all kinds of restaurants .
Personally , I choose not to dine indoors , but were I to choose to do so I ’ d be able to .
Interest rates have plummeted , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ save a bundle .
The once-terrifying state of my 401 ( k ) is now looking a lot better .
But if you ’ re still unemployed , you ’ re out of luck .
And if you ’ re a low-wage worker , you ’ re probably gaining nothing from the stock market , you ’ re taking a big risk with your health every time you report to the job , and the elevated pool of unemployed workers means you have little leverage to bargain for better pay and working conditions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ economist Justin Wolfers points out , the inflation rate has shifted in unusual ways that are unfavorable to low-income people : “ People are buying more of the essentials , like groceries , forcing their prices up .
And they ’ re buying fewer airline tickets and less gasoline and clothing , pushing those prices down.
” For white-collar workers with comfortable incomes , the rising price of food is offset by reduced spending on travel and dining out , and in many cases , office workers are no longer burning gas by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ always dedicated a larger share of their income to groceries , this is just bad news .
Economists sometimes talk about recessions in terms of letters of the alphabet — a V-shaped recession features a sharp recovery , while a U-shaped one takes longer , and an L-shaped one just crawls along the bottom .
The jargon for the current situation is that the recovery is K-shaped , with lines going in two different directions : To the extent that you work in an office and own stock or a home , things @ @ @ @ @ @ @ if you lack financial assets , they ’ re not .
And if you do in-person service work , your health is now seriously in jeopardy .
The other factor impacting Americans unevenly is the closure of schools in many jurisdictions .
For older kids , online learning is a drag .
For younger kids , it ’ s a huge drag on parents ’ attention — especially for mothers — or a new source of expense as more affluent parents hire nannies to assist with visual learning .
And for younger kids @ @ @ @ @ @ @ house and can ’ t afford child care , it ’ s an educational disaster .
But while the overall state of the economy is uneven and hard to summarize , the case on the merits for an economic boost is actually pretty simple : The bond market is clearly crying out for more stimulus .
This is a really good time for deficit spending The Treasury Department stages bond auctions of various kinds from time to time to finance the federal deficit , and on August 20 it held an auction for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Treasury Inflation-Protected Security .
This is a bond that pays interest for 30 years .
But rather than a flat interest rate , it promises to pay the owner the rate of inflation plus some interest — hence “ inflation-protected.
” The price that emerged from the auction was negative 0.272 percentage points .
The buyers of these bonds , in other words , are guaranteeing themselves financial losses .
It sounds weird , but negative interest rates have been popping up from time to time in various places for years now , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and slower population growth and as a result of short-term economic distress .
And while Treasury auctions are sporadic , because bonds trade constantly in secondary markets , the Treasury can ( and does ) calculate what it calls a “ real yield curve ” every business day .
This measures the inflation-adjusted cost of new government borrowing for different time spans , and this month it is negative at all horizons .
This bond market stuff gets very technical and sounds far removed from real-life issues such as growing lines at food @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of an eviction wave .
But on another level , it ’ s very simple .
Politicians can spin and argue about how to characterize the current state of the economy until the cows come home .
And what we really want to know is how the economy will be doing in three , six , or nine months , which is something experts have never been very good at predicting and that has now become doubly difficult — you ’ re essentially asking economic forecasters to model a pandemic and the public @ @ @ @ @ @ @ model the economic response to that response .
How likely is a winter spike in infections ?
How much will consumers pull back if it happens ?
These are really hard questions .
Yet it ’ s clear that there is some level of economic hardship out there , and it ’ s equally clear that addressing the hardship is extremely affordable .
Reasonable people can disagree about what , exactly , would be best to spend money on — or what taxes would be best to cut — but it seems pretty @ @ @ @ @ @ @ deficit is extremely affordable .
So as long as we could find even slightly worthwhile uses of the money , we 'd be better off .
Help keep Vox free for all Millions turn to Vox each month to understand what ’ s happening in the news , from the coronavirus crisis to a racial reckoning to what is , quite possibly , the most consequential presidential election of our lifetimes .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
But @ @ @ @ @ @ @ resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn .
Even when the economy and the news advertising market recovers , your support will be a critical part of sustaining our resource-intensive work , and helping everyone make sense of an increasingly chaotic world .
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The economy is growing again, with employers adding millions of workers to payrolls per month. The unemployment rate — which briefly hit levels far higher than the worst of the Great Recession — is now falling rapidly.
Fears that economic collapse would spiral out of control after the spring shutdowns have not been realized. Even more strikingly, the fact that the United States has failed to meaningfully contain the Covid-19 pandemic is proving to be less of an impediment to economic growth than one might have thought.
Six months ago, public health experts were arguing that if the United States set up robust surveillance testing, contact tracing, case isolation, and rigorous mask usage, a version of economic normalcy could return without incurring grave risks to human life. Looking across the globe, this seems to be correct — many countries have achieved much better outcomes in terms of less loss of life without incurring any clear economic cost relative to the United States.
At the same time, the view (once widespread among economists) that failing to control the outbreak would necessarily have dire economic consequences looks like it may have been overstated. While the US public health situation looks terrible in an international context, the economy is going okay.
“We’re witnessing the fastest labor market recovery from any economic crisis in history, by far,” President Donald Trump said at a Friday briefing room appearance to brag about the results. “This year, the United States has seen the smallest economic contraction of any major Western nation, and we are recovering at a much faster rate than any other nation.”
This is all (as you’d expect from Trump) a bit misleading, but the basic message that the economic news is good is correct.
But that’s largely due to the success of the CARES Act, many of the key provisions of which have expired. The country now faces a very uncertain fall, where the only clear thing in the data is that both the bond market and the Federal Reserve would welcome more stimulus.
The economic disaster this past spring wasn’t so bad
The key to understanding the current state of the economy is to recognize that, despite headlines warning of unemployment rising to the highest level since the Great Depression, things were not quite as bad as they seemed. The second quarter of 2020 was just a very weird time, macroeconomically speaking.
On the one hand, aggregate economic output shrank at the highest pace on record as huge swaths of the economy shut down, either under orders from state governments or else (like airlines and hotels) simply because demand wasn’t there.
But household income actually rose because unemployed workers received very generous unemployment insurance and nearly every adult got $1,200 from the federal government.
In humanitarian terms, this meant that despite a very stressful situation for essentially everyone, we did not see widespread hunger, mass evictions, or other social hardship. People had money for the things they needed, but spending on non-necessities went into the toilet. Lots of people increased their savings (less eating out, less driving, no movies or sports tickets or vacations), so the economy even built up some resiliency.
Had the country spent May and June pursuing a strategy to suppress the virus, we might have been able to reopen most things in July and August and enjoyed a strong economic rebound without too much danger to public health. That didn’t happen. But despite the lost opportunity to contain the virus, the economy did rebound sharply once restrictions began to lift. The CARES Act not only met urgent humanitarian needs during the period of maximum business closures, it also led the economy to behave like a bouncy ball: Even as economic activity collapsed, household finances did not, so when it became easier to go out and spend money, people did — and rapid economic growth ensued.
Trump’s boasting that “our economy and jobs are doing really well” rings a bit hollow in light of the reality that we’ve gotten back only half the jobs lost earlier in the pandemic, and the 8.4 percent unemployment rate is still awfully high.
Our Economy and Jobs are doing really well. Next Year will be a Record Setter. Stay Tuned! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 6, 2020
But the current job growth really is fast. In partisan terms, Republicans want to talk about rates (the economy is growing really fast), and Democrats want to talk about levels (output and employment are still below where they were a year ago). The bigger issue, however, is that even the springiest ball doesn’t regain its old heights.
We’re looking at permanent job losses
As this is a very unusual economic situation, traditional labor market indicators aren’t necessarily as informative as economists might like them to be.
One boring technical problem is that people who are on temporary furlough from their jobs are supposed to report themselves as unemployed if a Bureau of Labor Statistics surveyor calls. But many people in this situation, not being experts on labor market statistics, are evidently not doing this. So the real unemployment rate is higher than the official one.
A more serious conceptual issue is that ideally, it would be useful to distinguish between people who are unemployed because they work at a movie theater in a city that won’t let movie theaters open and people who’ve actually lost their jobs on a permanent basis.
Jason Furman, a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School who served as a top economic adviser in the Obama administration, constructs two alternate unemployment series: a “realistic” one that accounts for misclassification, and a “full recall” one that asks what would happen if everyone on furlough came back to work tomorrow.
The point of all this is that the improvement in the labor market situation has largely been the result of furloughed workers going back on the job. But while temporary furloughs continue to be a factor in the economy, Furman writes, “Even if individuals on temporary layoff returned to work very quickly, the United States would still have a recessionary level of unemployment for some time to come.”
But just as the spring economic disaster wasn’t as bad as the headlines suggested, the recovery doesn’t necessarily mean that everyone’s living standards are going up.
Many low-wage workers are worse off than they were this spring
Back in the spring, household income rose even as GDP and employment tumbled. Some of that was thanks to the $1,200 checks that almost every American adult received. But the biggest reason is that with unemployment insurance enhanced by $600 per week, many low-wage workers were actually seeing more income in coronavirus benefits than they ever earned on the job.
The business closures had a disproportionate impact on low-wage service workers (most white-collar office jobs continued, just from home), and the result was that a large majority of people who found themselves temporarily unemployed were actually better off than when they were working.
University of Chicago researchers found that under the CARES Act, 76 percent of workers were “eligible for benefits which exceed lost wages” and the median UI recipient saw their income rise by about a third.
Today, those CARES Act benefits have vanished. That means the remaining unemployed workers are seeing their income go down a lot relative to where it was during the spring and summer. But most of the workers who are back on the job have also seen their incomes fall as CARES benefits expire.
In other words, the main beneficiaries of the return to job growth have not been the people who are actually getting the jobs.
The K-shaped recovery
As an economically secure white-collar professional, my life has gotten a lot better since the depths of the downturn.
Parks and playgrounds are open again, as is every store in town for a brief masked pop-in. The weather’s nice, and I can get a meal outside at all kinds of restaurants. Personally, I choose not to dine indoors, but were I to choose to do so I’d be able to. Interest rates have plummeted, so I could refinance my house and save a bundle. The once-terrifying state of my 401(k) is now looking a lot better.
But if you’re still unemployed, you’re out of luck. And if you’re a low-wage worker, you’re probably gaining nothing from the stock market, you’re taking a big risk with your health every time you report to the job, and the elevated pool of unemployed workers means you have little leverage to bargain for better pay and working conditions.
Even worse, as Ford School economist Justin Wolfers points out, the inflation rate has shifted in unusual ways that are unfavorable to low-income people: “People are buying more of the essentials, like groceries, forcing their prices up. And they’re buying fewer airline tickets and less gasoline and clothing, pushing those prices down.”
For white-collar workers with comfortable incomes, the rising price of food is offset by reduced spending on travel and dining out, and in many cases, office workers are no longer burning gas by commuting. But for lower-income workers who always dedicated a larger share of their income to groceries, this is just bad news.
Economists sometimes talk about recessions in terms of letters of the alphabet — a V-shaped recession features a sharp recovery, while a U-shaped one takes longer, and an L-shaped one just crawls along the bottom.
The jargon for the current situation is that the recovery is K-shaped, with lines going in two different directions: To the extent that you work in an office and own stock or a home, things are bouncing back for you. But if you lack financial assets, they’re not. And if you do in-person service work, your health is now seriously in jeopardy.
The other factor impacting Americans unevenly is the closure of schools in many jurisdictions. For older kids, online learning is a drag. For younger kids, it’s a huge drag on parents’ attention — especially for mothers — or a new source of expense as more affluent parents hire nannies to assist with visual learning. And for younger kids whose parents have to work outside the house and can’t afford child care, it’s an educational disaster.
But while the overall state of the economy is uneven and hard to summarize, the case on the merits for an economic boost is actually pretty simple: The bond market is clearly crying out for more stimulus.
This is a really good time for deficit spending
The Treasury Department stages bond auctions of various kinds from time to time to finance the federal deficit, and on August 20 it held an auction for what’s known as the 30-year Treasury Inflation-Protected Security. This is a bond that pays interest for 30 years. But rather than a flat interest rate, it promises to pay the owner the rate of inflation plus some interest — hence “inflation-protected.”
The price that emerged from the auction was negative 0.272 percentage points.
The buyers of these bonds, in other words, are guaranteeing themselves financial losses. It sounds weird, but negative interest rates have been popping up from time to time in various places for years now, both for fundamental reasons related to inequality and slower population growth and as a result of short-term economic distress. And while Treasury auctions are sporadic, because bonds trade constantly in secondary markets, the Treasury can (and does) calculate what it calls a “real yield curve” every business day. This measures the inflation-adjusted cost of new government borrowing for different time spans, and this month it is negative at all horizons.
This bond market stuff gets very technical and sounds far removed from real-life issues such as growing lines at food banks, high unemployment, and fears of an eviction wave.
But on another level, it’s very simple. Politicians can spin and argue about how to characterize the current state of the economy until the cows come home. And what we really want to know is how the economy will be doing in three, six, or nine months, which is something experts have never been very good at predicting and that has now become doubly difficult — you’re essentially asking economic forecasters to model a pandemic and the public response to the pandemic, and then model the economic response to that response. How likely is a winter spike in infections? How much will consumers pull back if it happens? These are really hard questions.
Yet it’s clear that there is some level of economic hardship out there, and it’s equally clear that addressing the hardship is extremely affordable. Reasonable people can disagree about what, exactly, would be best to spend money on — or what taxes would be best to cut — but it seems pretty clear that a big increase in the deficit is extremely affordable. So as long as we could find even slightly worthwhile uses of the money, we'd be better off.
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vox--2020-09-10--The case for Broadband for All

The case for Broadband for All

Since the pandemic set in , Grace Riario and Melissa Morrone have witnessed a similar phenomenon at the libraries they work at in New York : people gathering around to try to catch the wifi outside their doors because indoor service is largely shut down .
“ People sit in the parking lot and on the benches outside , and they sit there for hours trying to do work , ” Riario said .
Riario oversees nine libraries in the Catskills region , where some areas don ’ t have access to broadband internet at all .
Morrone is a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ if people do theoretically have access , many can ’ t afford it .
They ’ re both seeing the real-life manifestations of the so-called “ digital divide.
” The divide is both rural and urban and tied to both access and inclusion .
According to the Federal Communications Commission ( FCC ) , 21 million Americans don ’ t have access to quality broadband internet , though some estimates suggest that number is much higher , even double .
Millions of people simply can ’ t access broadband because the infrastructure isn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s the question of cost — just because a wire runs by someone ’ s house doesn ’ t mean they can use it .
In 2019 , Pew Research found that half of non-broadband users still say they don ’ t subscribe to the service because it ’ s too expensive , and nearly one in five households earning $ 30,000 or less aren ’ t online .
A $ 60-a-month internet option , about the national average , is only available if you have that $ 60 .
Now the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ how crucial it is to have the internet — and how costly it is to be without it .
For millions of kids , it means access to an education .
For many workers , it means doing their jobs .
For patients , it means talking to a doctor .
It ’ s how we access government services , look for work , find our homes , and stay connected in our day-to-day lives .
“ Broadband plays a role in every aspect of society , ” said Nicol Turner Lee , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at the Brookings Institution .
“ The lack of connection means a degradation in quality of life ; it debilitates you.
” The Brooklyn library system Morrone works for has plans to install antennas on building rooftops so they can extend their wifi signals into homes and public spaces up to 300 feet away .
It will help , but it ’ s hardly a comprehensive solution .
“ It shouldn ’ t have gotten to this point here — the public libraries were such a critical node in people being able to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” she said .
The current context has made internet access in America a more urgent issue than ever .
The problem is painfully obvious , and fixing it entails understanding how we got here , seeing what ’ s at stake , and finally meeting the moment .
There are areas in the United States where it is geographically difficult and expensive to get residents broadband .
But getting the internet to everyone is not just about tech : It ’ s even more a policy question , one tied up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ multi-layered effort at the local , state , and federal levels .
“ We need policymakers to understand that broadband is absolutely essential in the ability of people to be able to participate in society , in democracy , and in the economy , ” said Jon Sallet , a senior fellow at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society .
His worry : “ We have a digital divide that we ’ ve talked about for years , but the threat of this crisis is that it becomes a digital chasm.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ America to have the internet , everyone in America would have the internet Broadband internet in the United States is not great .
It is too slow , too expensive , and it is not everywhere , even in urban areas .
Major telecommunications providers have been accused of “ digital redlining ” in cities such as Cleveland , Detroit , and Dallas , and discriminating against low-income and minority communities .
Even where there is a decent internet connection , there ’ s often only one option for a provider , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of that provider are .
The issue is , in part , that much of the country ’ s internet infrastructure has been left in the hands of the private sector , an atypical scenario relative to other services that require vast infrastructure .
The way it works is that there are fiber optic trunk lines across the US , and from there , other cables branch out .
Fiber is fast and pretty much limitless in capacity , but it is also expensive to install — especially in the last mile , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ business or home .
Most people get broadband through coaxial cable networks for that last mile , while others go through DSL that runs on copper phone lines .
The former is slow , the latter slower .
The US lags behind countries such as South Korea , Japan , and Switzerland when it comes to typical download speeds .
“ We ’ re willing to build an interstate , but we ’ re not willing to pay for the internet , ” said Tom Wheeler , who served as FCC chair under @ @ @ @ @ @ @ building out broadband , that means making decisions about where to expand based on their bottom lines .
Getting the internet to small communities or communities that are unlikely or unable to purchases their services may not be worth the upfront investment .
The competitive incentive isn ’ t there .
“ The market simply will not provide the level of broadband access that democracy requires , ” said Victor Pickard , a professor of communication at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania .
“ Internet service providers treat @ @ @ @ @ @ @ something they can make money on .
They ’ re not looking at it as a public service … they ’ re looking at it as something that can expand their profit margins.
” Telecommunications companies and ISPs are natural monopolies , which means that high infrastructure costs and other barriers to entry give early entrants a big advantage over potential competitors .
It costs money to install cable systems , and once one company does it , another one doesn ’ t want to do it again , nor does the company @ @ @ @ @ @ @ share .
Many Republicans and Democrats have taken a lax attitude toward the telecom industry , allowing companies to get big and powerful — the Telecommunications Act of 1996 allowed for an enormous amount of consolidation in the industry .
On top of that , at the local level , many municipalities have signed franchise agreements with ISPs to wire up their areas , further locking in monopolies with little negotiating power .
“ If you leave these guys to their own devices , they will divide up markets , consolidate , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” said Susan Crawford , a law professor at Harvard and the author of multiple books about the telecom industry .
Crawford has long advocated for nationwide high-speed fiber internet , which would allow for basically limitless amounts of data to travel .
The government has given private companies billions of dollars to try to fund broadband projects , especially on the rural front , but not all of that money has been well spent .
Funds have gone to operating costs for existing telecom providers instead of capital costs to build @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t wind up building out the networks they promise .
“ Their role is to connect people who can pay for access , and their role is clearly not figuring out how to connect low-income folks or people who live in the Adirondacks , ” said Christopher Mitchell , director of community broadband networks at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance .
Riario , the Catskills librarian , is well aware this is a big part of the issue in her area .
“ Companies are not going to come to a region @ @ @ @ @ @ @ them to make money .
They ’ re not into social justice , ” she said .
A good way to think about it is like how the mail , a public entity in the US , works as compared to broadband .
If the mail were private , carriers wouldn ’ t go to a lot of places in the country , and if they did , it would be expensive .
Delivering a letter to rural Montana costs the Postal Service a lot more than delivering one to downtown Washington , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this notion that somehow broadband service is something that we should leave to the marketplace , and it ’ s a colossal failure ” Whether or not private companies want to undertake every connection project themselves , they don ’ t want competitors to , either , because they ’ re afraid models would develop that would threaten their business .
More than 20 states have laws that ban or put up roadblocks to municipal broadband projects that might allow cities to provide alternatives and compete .
The telecom lobby fought hard for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , a bill to expand broadband access there recently died in the state assembly .
“ This is a situation that Americans really support [ expanded broadband access ] , but elected officials only hear from cable and telephone companies , ” Mitchell said .
“ There ’ s no Sierra Club of broadband yet , so we ’ re at a real disadvantage when it comes to lobbying.
” Gigi Sohn , a distinguished fellow at the Georgetown Institute for Technology & Law Policy , was more cutting in her assessment : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that somehow broadband service is something that we should leave to the marketplace , and it ’ s a colossal failure.
” Where there ’ s a ( political ) will , there ’ s a way Perhaps the biggest success story to date in the US of a city taking the internet into its own hands is Chattanooga , Tennessee .
In 2010 , the Electric Power Board of Chattanooga , the city-owned utility known as EPB , began offering ultra-high-speed internet to all of its residents after building out fiber to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ It occurred to me that we were like the first city to have fire , ” former Chattanooga Mayor Ron Littlefield said .
The feat wasn ’ t easy .
It cost $ 330 million , $ 111 million of which was federal money , and required buy-in from stakeholders of various political stripes .
It also entailed court battles — Comcast sued the city to try to stop the project altogether .
( Comcast is an investor in Vox Media . )
Littlefield recalls the push-and-pull with the telecom companies , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fair for government to compete with private enterprise .
“ I said to both of them , ‘ Are you kidding me ?
You want to compare balance sheets ?
’ ” Chattanooga didn ’ t win every battle — the telecom lobby later succeeded in getting Tennessee to bar the city from expanding its fiber optic system beyond its electric footprint .
( The FCC tried to block the state from doing that but ultimately lost in court . )
But within that footprint , the service is impactful , especially now @ @ @ @ @ @ @ set up at least 130 wifi hot spots around the community to help people stay connected , and it is in the process of raising $ 8.2 million needed to get its internet service to 28,000 economically disadvantaged students at no cost as part of a program set to last for 10 years .
Not only will it help two-thirds of the school system ’ s population stay connected , but it will also be enormously beneficial to their entire families .
Elizabeth Prieto , whose 12-year-old daughter , Ozada , qualified for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ internet to work from home as her daughter uses it for school .
“ It was a blessing when it was announced .
I couldn ’ t believe my eyes , ” she said .
Prieto , a single mother , lost work at the beginning of the pandemic and is trying to start her own business .
Kimberly Rios-Gonzalez ’ s family had been using Comcast ’ s $ 9.95 internet essentials program for low-income households , but by the middle of the summer , they could no longer afford that and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , just as Rios-Gonzalez ’ s 12-year-old daughter was heading back to school .
EPB hooked up new internet for her right away .
“ It ’ s been so great , and we don ’ t have to worry about it getting cut off , ” she said .
“ The thing that makes this work so well is that all these entities stepped up and said , ‘ We ’ ve got to solve this , ’ ” said Deb Socia , president and CEO of the Enterprise Center , a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that will allow this big , audacious goal to be a reality.
” While Chattanooga represents how municipal broadband can work , it also demonstrates how even in the best of circumstances , political battles continue .
Local officials are careful to say EPB ’ s program to connect students is “ at no cost to the customer ” instead of “ free ” because under Tennessee state law , it ’ s not allowed to subsidize service , and it ’ s had to engage in some wonky calculations to make it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t expand service to its neighbors .
“ The only thing that ’ s stopping us is politics , ” said Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke .
“ We have the technical know-how , we have the financial wherewithal , and the thing that stops us from providing high-speed broadband politics to Americans is politics , and that ’ s really tough.
” Despite the challenges , Chattanooga is hardly the only example of a city taking the reins of internet infrastructure .
Ammon , Idaho , for example , set up an open @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that has driven down prices .
In fact , more than 900 communities across the country have built out their own internet networks , including municipal networks and cooperatives .
“ If you look at the local level , you see a lot of imagination and political will , community will , to solve the problems , ” Sallet said .
Some communities have opted for more ad hoc workarounds and built out mesh networks , where groups tap into the fiber backbone and then use antennas to spread internet around local areas @ @ @ @ @ @ @ New York City , is in about 500 buildings across the city and connects about half a dozen new households each week .
Users are asked for a suggested contribution for setup and use , but people pay what they can — some a little , some a lot .
“ Our core tenet is that the internet is for everyone , and the amount you can afford each month , where you live , or what your home may look like should have nothing to do with whether you have an ability @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Rasmussen , an organizer with the group .
“ The internet is for everyone , and the amount you can afford each month , where you live , or what your home may look like should have nothing to do with whether you have an ability to go online ” The point of mesh networks goes beyond connecting certain communities — it ’ s also a way to create political momentum to broader action , explained Greta Byrum , director of Community Tech NY .
“ What it does do is it educates @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dynamics , ” she said .
“ The vast majority of city and town administrators and city councils and mayors and school districts , they don ’ t really understand actual infrastructure.
” That ’ s the type of will that ’ s necessary to overcome industry pushback .
“ The cable companies try to write laws to stop communities from making their own broadband cooperatives because of their monopoly rights , ” said Andrew Blum , the author of Tubes : A Journey to the Center of the Internet .
The more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the harder that becomes .
And right now , more people are thinking about it now than ever .
“ I think Covid-19 has made it even clearer how important it is to have internet access , and that creates a political opportunity , ” said Ganesh Sitaraman , a Vanderbilt law professor .
“ Congress could move the needle without paying a red cent right now ” Getting everyone on the internet is impossible without government action at the state and , ultimately , federal level , though there is hardly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ happen .
Some proposals cost money ; others do not .
Multiple experts I spoke with pointed to the $ 100 billion Accessible , Affordable Internet for All Act put forth by House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn ( D-SC ) as a solid option .
It includes putting $ 80 billion toward deploying high-speed broadband infrastructure across the country and providing a $ 50 monthly internet subsidy for low-income households , among other measures , in an attempt to address both accessibility and affordability .
Sohn described the bill , which passed the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Senate , as the “ candy store ” of ideas for digital inclusion .
Sallet said it ’ s a “ really good place to start.
” It ’ s also an idea private companies shouldn ’ t hate , because that $ 50 subsidy is going into their pockets .
Another place to start at the federal level is examining the likelihood the FCC overstates the amount of broadband access there is in the US .
Internet providers report whom they serve per census block , and if they serve a single @ @ @ @ @ @ @ counts .
“ As a carrier , I can tell you that ’ s overstated coverage , ” said Dane Jasper , CEO and co-founder of the internet company Sonic .
If you don ’ t know the scope of a problem , it ’ s hard to start fixing it .
As Bloomberg notes , the amount of money approved for FCC ’ s Rural Digital Opportunity Fund to try to help bridge the digital divide is based on this probably flawed data .
But there are areas where the federal government @ @ @ @ @ @ @ new money , or at least not sweeping public investments and policy changes , and instead are aimed at patching issues right now .
The FCC has a program called E-Rate that provides funding for internet in schools and libraries , but that internet is limited to the physical buildings .
The current issue , of course , is that the classroom is in people ’ s living rooms and bedrooms .
The FCC has $ 2 billion in E-Rate funds that could be directed to the surrounding communities , but thus far @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The state of Colorado has filed a petition with the FCC asking for the program to be modernized to meet the current moment .
Officials in Chattanooga point to expanding the use of E-Rate funds as a thing that would help there , too .
“ I do believe the FCC could do that tomorrow if it wanted to , ” Sohn said .
But if it won ’ t , she said , “ Congress could move the needle without paying a red cent right now.
” The FCC says the law @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that the ball is in Congress ’ s court .
Advocates also push for an update to Lifeline , a $ 9.25-a-month program put in place under the Reagan administration trying to make sure everyone could access the phone and therefore call 911 .
The program can now go toward the internet , but the funding is largely limited to telephone companies , Wheeler said , and needs to be expanded more broadly .
“ Red tape is the reason why that doesn ’ t happen , but that could be fixed by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The FCC , like many government entities , is prone to industry capture — being too friendly with the companies it ’ s supposed to regulate .
Under current chair Ajit Pai , critics say that has been especially true .
The FCC repealed net neutrality under his watch and has made multiple industry-pleasing moves .
At the outset of the pandemic , it rolled out a Keep Americans Connected initiative where companies pledged not to terminate service through June .
It was voluntary .
“ Looking at them , they are exhibiting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ They internalize the logics and values of the very industries they purportedly regulate , ” Pickard said .
“ In many ways , they are just performing customer service for these companies.
” In an email to Vox , a spokesperson for the FCC said that Pai has “ proposed and imposed some of the largest fines in FCC history ” on service providers and has “ repeatedly adopted policies ” that foster competition among incumbents and allow new entrants to deploy .
“ In short , his policies put consumers and innovators @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Pai has said that bridging the digital divide is a top priority for him at the FCC , but Wheeler noted that much of that has translated to connecting rural areas — and , more specifically , President Trump ’ s constituency — and not to connecting communities of color or low-income populations .
“ We ’ re making progress in rural [ areas ] , but we ’ re still not doing enough , ” he said .
“ We ’ re going backward in low-income America.
” While a higher share @ @ @ @ @ @ @ compared to urban ones , by total numbers , three times as many households that don ’ t subscribe live in non-rural areas .
That ’ s why any solutions need to focus on both access and affordability , families and kids in the country and in the cities .
“ Many students simply do not have the same type of infrastructure as others , ” said Andre Perry , a fellow at the Brookings Institution ’ s Metropolitan Policy Program .
“ That ’ s pretty much the very definition of structural @ @ @ @ @ @ @ while rural programs dominate the headlines , Pai has taken “ aggressive steps ” to connect all Americans .
While the pandemic may have put more public attention on the severe dilemma of internet access in the US , whenever the disease comes to an end , the problem won ’ t be solved .
Everything wasn ’ t fine pre-pandemic , and it won ’ t be fine post-pandemic , either — the FCC ’ s National Broadband Plan was released more than a decade ago , and look where we are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ last decade to treat it with the sense of urgency that ’ s needed , ” said Chris Lewis , president and CEO of Public Knowledge , an internet public interest group .
“ The solution takes time , it takes funding , and it takes the authority to create regulations at the FCC to ensure that the major barriers to closing the digital divide can be addressed.
” “ Policymakers have failed in the last decade to treat it with the sense of urgency that ’ s needed ” Reasonable minds can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ look like .
Elizabeth Warren campaigned on a public option for the internet ; Bernie Sanders wants to turn it into a public utility .
Some people insist the future lies in wireless and 5G faster networks ( though how much of the hype around 5G is real is an open question ) .
It would go a long way if the government would just put in pipes every time it does digging for an infrastructure project .
That ’ s part of what happened in Chattanooga — the city was upgrading its @ @ @ @ @ @ @ effort to expand it to internet .
Eventually , we need to lay pipes across the country like the highway for private companies to compete along it .
While most experts agree some sort of government intervention is necessary , they also emphasize that it ’ s not a panacea and that the private sector is going to be involved .
“ Too much government intervention lends itself to the same types of restrictions of public welfare that we see on poor people , ” Brookings ’ s Turner Lee said .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ job in Flint , [ Michigan , ] and I don ’ t think they will do an exceptional job when it comes to people of color.
” “ Whether you like it or not , most of the money for broadband is going to come from the private sector , ” said Roslyn Layton , a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute .
The seriousness of the digital divide in the US isn ’ t new , but the urgency around it is .
David Stehlin , CEO of the Telecommunications @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the internet should be a public utility , but there ’ s no denying it is important .
“ Everyone at the end of the day should be able to communicate , ” he said .
Can the country undertake some sort of internet-for-everyone moonshot ?
If there were ever momentum around the issue , it ’ s now .
It ’ s been done before , as part of the New Deal and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt ’ s efforts to bring electricity to rural America .
The idea of public electrification @ @ @ @ @ @ @ industry in the 1930s , but today , the idea that everyone should have accessible , affordable electricity is a no-brainer .
It ’ s time we think about the internet that way , too .
The good news , Crawford said , is that communities taking the issue of internet access into their own hands may help shame the federal government into a better policy eventually .
The bad news is it ’ s likely to be a “ heartbreakingly slow process.
” In the meantime , winter is coming , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ catch wifi to do schoolwork , that ’ s an immediate problem .
“ My concern is the wintertime , ” Riario said .
“ It ’ s not pleasant.
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Since the pandemic set in, Grace Riario and Melissa Morrone have witnessed a similar phenomenon at the libraries they work at in New York: people gathering around to try to catch the wifi outside their doors because indoor service is largely shut down. “People sit in the parking lot and on the benches outside, and they sit there for hours trying to do work,” Riario said.
Riario oversees nine libraries in the Catskills region, where some areas don’t have access to broadband internet at all. Morrone is a supervising librarian in Brooklyn, where even if people do theoretically have access, many can’t afford it. They’re both seeing the real-life manifestations of the so-called “digital divide.” The divide is both rural and urban and tied to both access and inclusion.
According to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), 21 million Americans don’t have access to quality broadband internet, though some estimates suggest that number is much higher, even double. Millions of people simply can’t access broadband because the infrastructure isn’t in place. Then there’s the question of cost — just because a wire runs by someone’s house doesn’t mean they can use it. In 2019, Pew Research found that half of non-broadband users still say they don’t subscribe to the service because it’s too expensive, and nearly one in five households earning $30,000 or less aren’t online. A $60-a-month internet option, about the national average, is only available if you have that $60.
Now the coronavirus pandemic has put into stark relief how crucial it is to have the internet — and how costly it is to be without it. For millions of kids, it means access to an education. For many workers, it means doing their jobs. For patients, it means talking to a doctor. It’s how we access government services, look for work, find our homes, and stay connected in our day-to-day lives.
“Broadband plays a role in every aspect of society,” said Nicol Turner Lee, director of the Center for Technology Innovation at the Brookings Institution. “The lack of connection means a degradation in quality of life; it debilitates you.”
The Brooklyn library system Morrone works for has plans to install antennas on building rooftops so they can extend their wifi signals into homes and public spaces up to 300 feet away. It will help, but it’s hardly a comprehensive solution. “It shouldn’t have gotten to this point here — the public libraries were such a critical node in people being able to participate in modern life in this way,” she said.
The current context has made internet access in America a more urgent issue than ever. The problem is painfully obvious, and fixing it entails understanding how we got here, seeing what’s at stake, and finally meeting the moment. There are areas in the United States where it is geographically difficult and expensive to get residents broadband. But getting the internet to everyone is not just about tech: It’s even more a policy question, one tied up in politics. Success will mean a multi-layered effort at the local, state, and federal levels.
“We need policymakers to understand that broadband is absolutely essential in the ability of people to be able to participate in society, in democracy, and in the economy,” said Jon Sallet, a senior fellow at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society. His worry: “We have a digital divide that we’ve talked about for years, but the threat of this crisis is that it becomes a digital chasm.”
If it were lucrative for everyone in America to have the internet, everyone in America would have the internet
Broadband internet in the United States is not great. It is too slow, too expensive, and it is not everywhere, even in urban areas. Major telecommunications providers have been accused of “digital redlining” in cities such as Cleveland, Detroit, and Dallas, and discriminating against low-income and minority communities. Even where there is a decent internet connection, there’s often only one option for a provider, and customers are left to whatever the whims of that provider are.
The issue is, in part, that much of the country’s internet infrastructure has been left in the hands of the private sector, an atypical scenario relative to other services that require vast infrastructure.
The way it works is that there are fiber optic trunk lines across the US, and from there, other cables branch out. Fiber is fast and pretty much limitless in capacity, but it is also expensive to install — especially in the last mile, the final bit of connection to a business or home. Most people get broadband through coaxial cable networks for that last mile, while others go through DSL that runs on copper phone lines. The former is slow, the latter slower. The US lags behind countries such as South Korea, Japan, and Switzerland when it comes to typical download speeds.
“We’re willing to build an interstate, but we’re not willing to pay for the internet,” said Tom Wheeler, who served as FCC chair under President Obama.
For private telecom companies building out broadband, that means making decisions about where to expand based on their bottom lines. Getting the internet to small communities or communities that are unlikely or unable to purchases their services may not be worth the upfront investment. The competitive incentive isn’t there.
“The market simply will not provide the level of broadband access that democracy requires,” said Victor Pickard, a professor of communication at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. “Internet service providers treat the internet as a commodity, as something they can make money on. They’re not looking at it as a public service … they’re looking at it as something that can expand their profit margins.”
Telecommunications companies and ISPs are natural monopolies, which means that high infrastructure costs and other barriers to entry give early entrants a big advantage over potential competitors. It costs money to install cable systems, and once one company does it, another one doesn’t want to do it again, nor does the company that made all the investment want to share. Many Republicans and Democrats have taken a lax attitude toward the telecom industry, allowing companies to get big and powerful — the Telecommunications Act of 1996 allowed for an enormous amount of consolidation in the industry. On top of that, at the local level, many municipalities have signed franchise agreements with ISPs to wire up their areas, further locking in monopolies with little negotiating power.
“If you leave these guys to their own devices, they will divide up markets, consolidate, and charge as much as they possibly can,” said Susan Crawford, a law professor at Harvard and the author of multiple books about the telecom industry. Crawford has long advocated for nationwide high-speed fiber internet, which would allow for basically limitless amounts of data to travel.
The government has given private companies billions of dollars to try to fund broadband projects, especially on the rural front, but not all of that money has been well spent. Funds have gone to operating costs for existing telecom providers instead of capital costs to build infrastructure outright. Sometimes, companies don’t wind up building out the networks they promise.
“Their role is to connect people who can pay for access, and their role is clearly not figuring out how to connect low-income folks or people who live in the Adirondacks,” said Christopher Mitchell, director of community broadband networks at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.
Riario, the Catskills librarian, is well aware this is a big part of the issue in her area. “Companies are not going to come to a region that does not have enough customers for them to make money. They’re not into social justice,” she said.
A good way to think about it is like how the mail, a public entity in the US, works as compared to broadband. If the mail were private, carriers wouldn’t go to a lot of places in the country, and if they did, it would be expensive. Delivering a letter to rural Montana costs the Postal Service a lot more than delivering one to downtown Washington, DC.
“There’s been this notion that somehow broadband service is something that we should leave to the marketplace, and it’s a colossal failure”
Whether or not private companies want to undertake every connection project themselves, they don’t want competitors to, either, because they’re afraid models would develop that would threaten their business. More than 20 states have laws that ban or put up roadblocks to municipal broadband projects that might allow cities to provide alternatives and compete. The telecom lobby fought hard for these provisions. In deep blue California, a bill to expand broadband access there recently died in the state assembly.
“This is a situation that Americans really support [expanded broadband access], but elected officials only hear from cable and telephone companies,” Mitchell said. “There’s no Sierra Club of broadband yet, so we’re at a real disadvantage when it comes to lobbying.”
Gigi Sohn, a distinguished fellow at the Georgetown Institute for Technology & Law Policy, was more cutting in her assessment: “There’s been this notion that somehow broadband service is something that we should leave to the marketplace, and it’s a colossal failure.”
Where there’s a (political) will, there’s a way
Perhaps the biggest success story to date in the US of a city taking the internet into its own hands is Chattanooga, Tennessee. In 2010, the Electric Power Board of Chattanooga, the city-owned utility known as EPB, began offering ultra-high-speed internet to all of its residents after building out fiber to the city for a smart grid.
“It occurred to me that we were like the first city to have fire,” former Chattanooga Mayor Ron Littlefield said.
The feat wasn’t easy. It cost $330 million, $111 million of which was federal money, and required buy-in from stakeholders of various political stripes. It also entailed court battles — Comcast sued the city to try to stop the project altogether. (Comcast is an investor in Vox Media.) Littlefield recalls the push-and-pull with the telecom companies, who argued that it wasn’t fair for government to compete with private enterprise. “I said to both of them, ‘Are you kidding me? You want to compare balance sheets?’”
Comcast declined to comment on Chattanooga.
Chattanooga didn’t win every battle — the telecom lobby later succeeded in getting Tennessee to bar the city from expanding its fiber optic system beyond its electric footprint. (The FCC tried to block the state from doing that but ultimately lost in court.) But within that footprint, the service is impactful, especially now. During the pandemic, EPB has set up at least 130 wifi hot spots around the community to help people stay connected, and it is in the process of raising $8.2 million needed to get its internet service to 28,000 economically disadvantaged students at no cost as part of a program set to last for 10 years. Not only will it help two-thirds of the school system’s population stay connected, but it will also be enormously beneficial to their entire families.
Elizabeth Prieto, whose 12-year-old daughter, Ozada, qualified for the program, uses EPB’s internet to work from home as her daughter uses it for school. “It was a blessing when it was announced. I couldn’t believe my eyes,” she said. Prieto, a single mother, lost work at the beginning of the pandemic and is trying to start her own business.
Kimberly Rios-Gonzalez’s family had been using Comcast’s $9.95 internet essentials program for low-income households, but by the middle of the summer, they could no longer afford that and in late August had service cut off, just as Rios-Gonzalez’s 12-year-old daughter was heading back to school. EPB hooked up new internet for her right away. “It’s been so great, and we don’t have to worry about it getting cut off,” she said.
“The thing that makes this work so well is that all these entities stepped up and said, ‘We’ve got to solve this,’” said Deb Socia, president and CEO of the Enterprise Center, a local nonprofit. “This is something that will allow this big, audacious goal to be a reality.”
While Chattanooga represents how municipal broadband can work, it also demonstrates how even in the best of circumstances, political battles continue. Local officials are careful to say EPB’s program to connect students is “at no cost to the customer” instead of “free” because under Tennessee state law, it’s not allowed to subsidize service, and it’s had to engage in some wonky calculations to make it work. And EPB still can’t expand service to its neighbors.
“The only thing that’s stopping us is politics,” said Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke. “We have the technical know-how, we have the financial wherewithal, and the thing that stops us from providing high-speed broadband internet to Americans is politics, and that’s really tough.”
Despite the challenges, Chattanooga is hardly the only example of a city taking the reins of internet infrastructure. Ammon, Idaho, for example, set up an open access network with several internet service providers that has driven down prices. In fact, more than 900 communities across the country have built out their own internet networks, including municipal networks and cooperatives.
“If you look at the local level, you see a lot of imagination and political will, community will, to solve the problems,” Sallet said.
Some communities have opted for more ad hoc workarounds and built out mesh networks, where groups tap into the fiber backbone and then use antennas to spread internet around local areas. NYC Mesh, an organization in New York City, is in about 500 buildings across the city and connects about half a dozen new households each week. Users are asked for a suggested contribution for setup and use, but people pay what they can — some a little, some a lot. “Our core tenet is that the internet is for everyone, and the amount you can afford each month, where you live, or what your home may look like should have nothing to do with whether you have an ability to go online,” said Scott Rasmussen, an organizer with the group.
“The internet is for everyone, and the amount you can afford each month, where you live, or what your home may look like should have nothing to do with whether you have an ability to go online”
The point of mesh networks goes beyond connecting certain communities — it’s also a way to create political momentum to broader action, explained Greta Byrum, director of Community Tech NY. “What it does do is it educates people about the structure and the power dynamics,” she said. “The vast majority of city and town administrators and city councils and mayors and school districts, they don’t really understand actual infrastructure.”
That’s the type of will that’s necessary to overcome industry pushback. “The cable companies try to write laws to stop communities from making their own broadband cooperatives because of their monopoly rights,” said Andrew Blum, the author of Tubes: A Journey to the Center of the Internet.
The more people know and care about the matter, the harder that becomes. And right now, more people are thinking about it now than ever.
“I think Covid-19 has made it even clearer how important it is to have internet access, and that creates a political opportunity,” said Ganesh Sitaraman, a Vanderbilt law professor.
“Congress could move the needle without paying a red cent right now”
Getting everyone on the internet is impossible without government action at the state and, ultimately, federal level, though there is hardly a consensus on what exactly needs to happen. Some proposals cost money; others do not.
Multiple experts I spoke with pointed to the $100 billion Accessible, Affordable Internet for All Act put forth by House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-SC) as a solid option. It includes putting $80 billion toward deploying high-speed broadband infrastructure across the country and providing a $50 monthly internet subsidy for low-income households, among other measures, in an attempt to address both accessibility and affordability. Sohn described the bill, which passed the House but has gone nowhere in the Senate, as the “candy store” of ideas for digital inclusion. Sallet said it’s a “really good place to start.” It’s also an idea private companies shouldn’t hate, because that $50 subsidy is going into their pockets.
Another place to start at the federal level is examining the likelihood the FCC overstates the amount of broadband access there is in the US. Internet providers report whom they serve per census block, and if they serve a single household in a given block, it counts. “As a carrier, I can tell you that’s overstated coverage,” said Dane Jasper, CEO and co-founder of the internet company Sonic.
If you don’t know the scope of a problem, it’s hard to start fixing it. As Bloomberg notes, the amount of money approved for FCC’s Rural Digital Opportunity Fund to try to help bridge the digital divide is based on this probably flawed data.
But there are areas where the federal government can act that don’t involve new money, or at least not sweeping public investments and policy changes, and instead are aimed at patching issues right now.
The FCC has a program called E-Rate that provides funding for internet in schools and libraries, but that internet is limited to the physical buildings. The current issue, of course, is that the classroom is in people’s living rooms and bedrooms. The FCC has $2 billion in E-Rate funds that could be directed to the surrounding communities, but thus far, it hasn’t happened. The state of Colorado has filed a petition with the FCC asking for the program to be modernized to meet the current moment. Officials in Chattanooga point to expanding the use of E-Rate funds as a thing that would help there, too.
“I do believe the FCC could do that tomorrow if it wanted to,” Sohn said. But if it won’t, she said, “Congress could move the needle without paying a red cent right now.”
The FCC says the law limits funding to “classrooms” and that the ball is in Congress’s court.
Advocates also push for an update to Lifeline, a $9.25-a-month program put in place under the Reagan administration trying to make sure everyone could access the phone and therefore call 911. The program can now go toward the internet, but the funding is largely limited to telephone companies, Wheeler said, and needs to be expanded more broadly. “Red tape is the reason why that doesn’t happen, but that could be fixed by the FCC,” he said.
The FCC, like many government entities, is prone to industry capture — being too friendly with the companies it’s supposed to regulate. Under current chair Ajit Pai, critics say that has been especially true. The FCC repealed net neutrality under his watch and has made multiple industry-pleasing moves. At the outset of the pandemic, it rolled out a Keep Americans Connected initiative where companies pledged not to terminate service through June. It was voluntary.
“Looking at them, they are exhibiting a textbook case of regulatory capture. They internalize the logics and values of the very industries they purportedly regulate,” Pickard said. “In many ways, they are just performing customer service for these companies.”
In an email to Vox, a spokesperson for the FCC said that Pai has “proposed and imposed some of the largest fines in FCC history” on service providers and has “repeatedly adopted policies” that foster competition among incumbents and allow new entrants to deploy. “In short, his policies put consumers and innovators first,” the spokesperson said.
Pai has said that bridging the digital divide is a top priority for him at the FCC, but Wheeler noted that much of that has translated to connecting rural areas — and, more specifically, President Trump’s constituency — and not to connecting communities of color or low-income populations. “We’re making progress in rural [areas], but we’re still not doing enough,” he said. “We’re going backward in low-income America.”
While a higher share of rural households lack a broadband subscription compared to urban ones, by total numbers, three times as many households that don’t subscribe live in non-rural areas. That’s why any solutions need to focus on both access and affordability, families and kids in the country and in the cities.
“Many students simply do not have the same type of infrastructure as others,” said Andre Perry, a fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program. “That’s pretty much the very definition of structural inequality.”
The FCC spokesperson said that while rural programs dominate the headlines, Pai has taken “aggressive steps” to connect all Americans.
America’s internet problem is not a Covid-19 problem
While the pandemic may have put more public attention on the dilemma of internet access in the US, when disease outbreaks fade, the problem won’t be solved. Everything wasn’t fine pre-pandemic, and it won’t be fine post-pandemic, either — the FCC’s National Broadband Plan was released more than a decade ago, and look where we are.
“Policymakers have failed in the last decade to treat it with the sense of urgency that’s needed,” said Chris Lewis, president and CEO of Public Knowledge, an internet public interest group. “The solution takes time, it takes funding, and it takes the authority to create regulations at the FCC to ensure that the major barriers to closing the digital divide can be addressed.”
“Policymakers have failed in the last decade to treat it with the sense of urgency that’s needed”
Reasonable minds can disagree on what exactly a solution should look like. Elizabeth Warren campaigned on a public option for the internet; Bernie Sanders wants to turn it into a public utility. Some people insist the future lies in wireless and 5G faster networks (though how much of the hype around 5G is real is an open question). It would go a long way if the government would just put in pipes every time it does digging for an infrastructure project. That’s part of what happened in Chattanooga — the city was upgrading its infrastructure, and local leaders made the effort to expand it to internet. Eventually, we need to lay pipes across the country like the highway for private companies to compete along it.
While most experts agree some sort of government intervention is necessary, they also emphasize that it’s not a panacea and that the private sector is going to be involved.
“Too much government intervention lends itself to the same types of restrictions of public welfare that we see on poor people,” Brookings’s Turner Lee said. “Government didn’t do a good job in Flint, [Michigan,] and I don’t think they will do an exceptional job when it comes to people of color.”
“Whether you like it or not, most of the money for broadband is going to come from the private sector,” said Roslyn Layton, a visiting researcher at Aalborg University in Denmark.
The seriousness of the digital divide in the US isn’t new, but the urgency around it is. David Stehlin, CEO of the Telecommunications Industry Association, disputed the idea that the internet should be a public utility, but there’s no denying it is important. “Everyone at the end of the day should be able to communicate,” he said.
Can the country undertake some sort of internet-for-everyone moonshot? If there were ever momentum around the issue, it’s now. It’s been done before, as part of the New Deal and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s efforts to bring electricity to rural America. The idea of public electrification was met with enormous resistance from private industry in the 1930s, but today, the idea that everyone should have accessible, affordable electricity is a no-brainer. It’s time we think about the internet that way, too.
The good news, Crawford said, is that communities taking the issue of internet access into their own hands may help shame the federal government into a better policy eventually. The bad news is it’s likely to be a “heartbreakingly slow process.”
In the meantime, winter is coming, and for families huddling outside libraries trying to catch wifi to do schoolwork, that’s an immediate problem. “My concern is the wintertime,” Riario said. “It’s not pleasant.”