It often is difficult to determine whether any specific government or private program to “fix a problem” actually worked. An emergency program for broadband service might provide a case in point.
The Emergency Broadband Benefit (“EBB”) Program, established by the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 had nearly nine million participants by the end of 2021. The stated purpose was to keep low-income households connected at a time when Covid restrictions made it hard for people to go to work.
So the U.S. Congress created a program providing up to a $50 monthly subsidy (more in tribal areas) for Internet connections, in addition to existing programs.
The issue is how to interpret program success. The stated objective was to “keep people connected.
The problem is that most of the people using the temporary program also were using the existing programs. So it is akin to trying to “prove a negative” (proving something to be true--with certainty--in the absence of evidence).
Households on support programs did not disconnect. What we do not know is whether they would have disconnected in the absence of the emergency program.
“My analysis suggests that in November 2021, Lifeline subscribers (households receiving discounted service) accounted for about 80 percent of EBB participation,” says George Ford, Phoenix Center chief economist. “With broadband adoption by low-income Americans being about 75 percent, it could be that only about five percent of EBB participants were not previously online.”
What we might be able to say is that the “EBB Program did not appear to be increasing broadband adoption by much, though it may be argued that was not the point,” says Ford. “The point of the EBB Program was not necessarily to expand adoption but to maintain it during the pandemic’s economic malaise, so perhaps this finding is untroubling.”
Still, we do not know what might have happened if the EBB did not exist.
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