Trump's Cancellation of Digital Equity Act Programs Will Perpetuate the Digital Divide

With social security field offices closing across the country, Americans are increasingly limited to accessing critical social services online. But the administration just illegally jettisoned the program that could have helped people do that.

In early May, following months of silence and confusion, the Trump administration abruptly cancelled Digital Equity Act (DEA) programs—the US’s biggest investment in providing Americans with the tools and skills they need to reap the benefits of accessing the internet. And with states and organizations on the cusp of implementing their plans for the funding, the timing couldn’t be worse.

Building broadband infrastructure—the cables and wires that allow people to access the internet in the first place—is only one part of closing the digital divide; ensuring people subscribe to the service is the other. That’s why Congress created the DEA at the same time it invested $42 billion into broadband infrastructure buildout through the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program. Addressing non-infrastructural barriers—like the cost of a subscription, availability of connected devices, and the inability to safely navigate online services—is necessary to ensure people can actually get online with the networks that are built.

In fact, lack of internet adoption is a more significant cause of the digital divide than lack of physical infrastructure. This is the problem that the DEA was meant to address by funding digital literacy instruction, affordable device programs, technical support, and community-based digital navigators to help people get and stay online.

The benefits of these programs would flow to Americans from nearly all walks of life. Congress directed the states to identify the unique barriers faced by different groups that are disproportionately offline. These “covered populations” include people with disabilities, racial and ethnic minorities, lower-income or rural households, the aging population, and veterans. This framework ensured the program targeted some of the populations most in need of its support.

Rural homeowners who rely on telehealth to see specialists, seniors trying to connect with their family, farmers in need of more advanced agricultural tools, and small business owners trying to bring their livelihoods online: these are the groups that the funds would have helped. And far from benefiting some small subset of the population, the majority of people in every state are eligible for funding under one of those categories.

Take Texas and Florida, which have some of the highest allocations of DEA funding overall. In Texas, after racial or ethnic minorities (at 61 percent), low-income and rural households each make up over a fifth of the population. Florida’s senior residents make up over 28 percent of its population; its veterans make up six percent; and its population of people with a disability makes up 14 percent. In Alabama, half of the population is rural, and a quarter qualifies as elderly. And across the US, many people fall under more than one category.

In fact, some states’ populations fall nearly entirely under one or more covered categories—like West Virginia at 97 percent, Vermont at 95 percent, and Mississippi at 93 percent. Maine’s now-frozen programs would help 130,000 people in the state alone. It’s hard to imagine a more democratized and widely beneficial series of programs than those that flowed from the DEA.

And bringing more people online benefits Americans who aren’t covered, too. Countries with higher broadband adoption rates see increased economic growth and resilience in the face of disasters. Indeed, a major broadband subsidy program called the Affordable Connectivity Program was shown to generate benefits double its investment. More broadband adoption catalyzes improved health outcomes and more productive education. Critical government services can be provided online with greater efficiency and lower cost—but this all requires a population trained and equipped to use the internet.

The reality is that the US lags woefully behind much of the world in broadband adoption and the digital skills needed to safely and effectively use the internet and connected devices. This matters more as digital skills become currency in the digital age. Workers with digital skills see higher wages; in fact, a recent study found a 23 percent increase in salary for a job description with a single digital skill requirement. The majority of jobs require some measure of digital skills. The digital economy is worth trillions of dollars. And AI’s explosive growth in the last few years is a harbinger of future advancements that hinge on Americans’ ability to traverse the online sphere.

While the US lags, countries around the world are equipping themselves to thrive in the digital age. Singapore, for example, has a national platform that integrates career training, education, and digital skills and helps equip citizens with necessary practical skills. The EU continues to develop DigComp—its sophisticated blueprint for digital upskilling—across its member states. Despite dedicated grassroots efforts, the US doesn’t have a strategy or a coherent national agenda for broadband adoption, increasing digital upskilling, or any other plan to compete in today’s digital economy. The DEA was our best national shot at creating one.

With DEA-funded programs now in limbo thanks to the administration’s legally dubious ‘cancellation,’ chaos and confusion reign. States and organizations that invested years and significant resources administering and applying for various programs are now being forced to cancel or freeze initiatives. For example, South Carolina suspended its Digital Workforce Initiative after notice of the funding revocation, pausing programs that promote digital literacy, cybersecurity, and the prevention of cyber scams, which usually target the elderly.

Even if the programs are eventually revived, some losses we’ll never be able to recoup—like the institutional knowledge and jobs lost when digital skills trainers and coordinators lose the funding for their salaries. Some community organizations with no other source of funding will need to permanently close their doors.

And the loss of trust among the communities promised these funds is incalculable—and maybe unrecoverable considering the significant role trust plays in keeping communities offline. Once people see that they’re right to suspect an affordable broadband plan, community digital navigation service, or refurbished device program is too good to be true—and only temporary—we can’t reasonably expect them to come back for more disappointment.

If broadband is the infrastructure of the digital age, digital inclusion means empowering the population to use that infrastructure. It’s as if the Trump administration just invested billions of taxpayer funds in building roads while simultaneously shuttering and defunding DMVs, driving schools, and affordable car lots across the country.

In the five months now since the new administration was installed, we’ve seen nothing but a precipitous regression. All programs were frozen without explanation for months. The $42 billion BEAD program is paused, awaiting now-postponed ‘further guidance.’ And now, on the cusp of implementation, the DEA programs have been cancelled without explanation or cause.

President Donald Trump’s term began at the moment when these programs were ready to roll out across the country. This administration could oversee one of the most universally beneficial and consequential policies in years—one that would yield measurable benefits in every sector of American life and in every geographic region. There’s still time to bring the program back and take the easy win.

Ending the DEA isn’t putting America first. It’s pulling America out of a critical global race and wasting taxpayer dollars in the process.