Rural broadband = More jobs, better salaries
A new USDA report shows that rural counties that get on the broadband bandwagon see more and better-paying jobs. But high-speed Internet penetration in the countryside still lags behind cities by big percentages.
[By Matthew Lasar, Ars Technica; August 20, 2009]
Is broadband access good for rural America? In case there were any doubts, the Department of Agriculture put them to rest in a new report, "Broadband Internet's Value for Rural America." The study contends that rural counties in the United States that embraced broadband adoption at the start of this decade enjoy access to more jobs than those that did not. Their residents also make more money than their less-connected counterparts.
"Wage and salary jobs, as well as number of proprietors, grew faster in counties with early broadband Internet access," the survey concludes. "Non-farm earnings showed greater growth corresponding to broadband availability."
But large chunks of rural America still have a ways to go. Only 41 percent of rural households had broadband access in 2008, the USDA says, as opposed to 55 percent nationally. And adoption rates still lag behind cities, with a "marked difference" between urban and rural use. Only 70 percent of rural households with access to broadband embraced it in 2007, the report says, as opposed to 84 percent of city dwellers.
Still, USDA argues that the biggest problem facing the countryside is getting broadband services to sparsely populated regions with difficult terrains. "These characteristics can make the fixed cost of providing broadband access too high, or limit potential demand, thus depressing the profitability," the report says, a conclusion that will cheer advocates of ongoing government stimulus for high-speed Internet development. The survey is also skeptical of the notion that Internet use discourages civic or community involvement. Au contraire, the authors say. It gets people more involved.
This survey comes, of course, as the USDA and the Department of Commerce are accepting applications for loans and grants for broadband stimulus projects. The deadline for proposals for round one of the funding closed on August 20, 2009. Two more rounds are planned before September of 2010.
Source: USDA
Unequal counties
For the study, USDA picked 228 rural counties that had "relatively high broadband availability" in 2000. The researchers paired each of these areas with a "twin"—another county that resembles its size, shape, and population, but which did not get on the broadband bandwagon. "The results we obtained are consistent with the argument that broadband Internet access has a positive effect on rural communities," the document concludes. Earnings, excluding farm and government jobs, "were greater for the treatment counties than for the control counties."
Why do some rural households embrace high-speed Internet when their neighbors do not? The report repeatedly says that availability is the key issue. Income is not, above a certain level. "Over 70 percent of all households with incomes above $40,000 had in-home Internet access," it notes. "Rural-urban differences are largely nonexistent between households of the same income level."
So where you live in rural America is a big factor. The west, with its more urbanized population distribution, has more rural connectivity, as opposed to southeast. "Fewer than half of rural households in the South had Internet access at home in 2007," the survey reports. Broadband use is particularly sparse in the Dakotas, eastern Montana, eastern Oregon, northern Minnesota, Missouri-Iowa, and Appalachia, the report says.
