Internet on the Range
Peter
Stenberg
Mitch
Morehart
Bob Nichols, USDA/NRCS
Over the last decade, the Internet
has become a standard tool used in the workplace.
Access to and use of the Internet has increased
since the 1990s for all regions of the country,
most types of workplaces, and all income groups.
While many see the Internet as ubiquitous, it has
not yet become universal. Rural areas lag urban
areas in access to the Internet, and a gap is evident
between farm and nonfarm workplaces.
According to data from the October
2003 Current Population Survey, 42 percent of all
U.S. employees had access to the Internet at their
workplace. Rural workers (31 percent) were less
likely than urban workers (43 percent) to have access
to the Internet. Among all employed persons, the
likelihood of having access to the Internet rises
with household income. More than 70 percent of workers
with a household income greater than $150,000 had
access to the Internet, but the percentage drops
below 21 percent for workers with household incomes
under $25,000. Within each household income group,
rural workers were less likely than urban workers
to have workplace Internet access.
In 2003, 60 percent of all U.S.
households had a least one adult who used the Internet
someplace, such as at work, school, home, or the
library. The rate was 51 percent in rural households,
compared with 62 percent in urban households. As
would be expected given education’s role in
the determination of income, Internet use is greater
with higher educational attainment. For households
where the primary breadwinner has a college degree,
Internet use is 81 percent—82 percent for
urban and 76 percent for rural households. For households
where no adult has graduated from high school, the
rate drops to 39 percent—40 percent for urban
and 33 percent for rural households.
In rural areas, farms have been
in the vanguard of Internet use in the workplace.
According to data from USDA’s Agricultural
Resource Management Survey, 56 percent of farms
reported having computers with Internet access in
2004. Twenty percent of those respondents used the
Internet to purchase farm-related items and 29 percent
used it to purchase household items. Internet use
varied somewhat by geographic location of the farm
household, with farms in small towns having the
lowest share with Internet access. Differences in
Internet use among farm households by farm sales,
however, were striking. Internet use ranged from
49 percent for farms with sales of $10,000 to $19,999
to 84 percent for the largest farms (gross sales
of $500,000 or more). The largest farms also had
the highest share of individuals using the Internet
to make both farm and household purchases, mirroring
the pattern of all U.S. households.
Summarized
farm business and household data.
The ERS Briefing Room
on Rural Telecommunications.
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