Megan waiters can recite the stories of dozens of people who have helped connect the internet to West Alabama. A 7 -year -old who could not make online categories without tablet and the 91 -year -old taught to check the healthcare gates on a smartphone.
“They have health care needs, but they do not have digital skills,” said Waiters, who is a digital navigator for a non -profit Alabama organization. Her work has been involved in distribution of computers and tablets, while teaching lessons on how to use the internet for work and personal needs, such as banking and health. “It’s like a foreign space.”
These stories are now sweet and bitter.
The waiters are part of a network of digital navigators across the country, whose work to bring others to the digital world was, at least in part, supported by a $ 2.75 billion federal program that canceled this spring. Halt came after President Donald Trump published on the social platform of truth that the law on digital shares was unconstitutional and pledged “no longer woke up the race -based brochures!”
The act lists exactly who should benefit money, including low -income households, older residents, some imprisoned people, rural Americans, veterans and members of racial or ethnic minority groups. Politicians, researchers, librarians and supporters have said that the collapse of the program, along with other changes in federal broadband initiatives, endanger efforts to help agricultural and degraded residents to participate in modern economy.
“You could see the change of lives,” said Sam Helmick, president of the American Library Association, reminding how they helped grandparents in Iowa control recipes online or fired employees to fill out employees.
The Digital Shares Law is part of the 2021 infrastructure law, which included $ 65 billion for the construction of high -speed infrastructure and connecting millions of without internet access.
This year, Congress once again pushed a modern approach to help Americans, forcing state leaders prioritize new and emerging technologies through the $ 50 billion rural health transformation program.
A News Health KFF analysis found that about 3 million people in America live in areas with shortcomings of medical professionals and where modern telecommunications services are often inaccessible due to bad internet connections. The analysis found that in about 200 mainly rural counties where the dead zones insist, residents live more ill and dying earlier on average than the rest of the country. High -speed internet access is among many social factors, such as food and safe housing, that help people lead healthier lives.
“The internet provides this extra level of durability,” said Christina Filipovic, which is leading the research on the Institute of Business Institutes at the University of Tufts. The research team found in 2022 that high -speed internet access was associated with fewer Covid deaths, especially in subway areas.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, federal legislators launched a subsidy program paid by the Infrastructure Act. This help, called an affordable connectivity program, aims to connect more people to their jobs, schools and doctors. In 2024, Congress did not renew the funding of the subsidy program, which had registered about 23 million low -income households.
This year, US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick was renewed and delayed the initiative of the construction of the infrastructure law – known as a program of broadband, access and installation or beads – after announcing plans to reduce regulatory burdens. More than 40 states and territories have made final proposals to extend the high -speed internet to areas not covered by the new guidelines of the administration, in accordance with a control panel of the Department of Commerce.
In May, the funding of the Law on Digital Shares was terminated within a few days of the social status of Trump’s truth. While many states in 2022 had received money to design their programs, the next round of funding, set for states and organizations for the implementation of the plans, had been largely acquired, but were not distributed.
Instead, the federal regulators – including national telecommunications and the Intelligence Service, the federal organization that oversees the implementation of the Digital Share Law – informed the recipients that the grants would be terminated. The grants were created and granted with “unconstitutional racial preferences”, according to the letter.
In Phoenix, officials learned in January that the city was scheduled to get $ 11.8 million to increase internet access and teach digital alphabetism, but received an email on May 20, stating that all grants were except “except” except “grants”. “It’s a shame,” said Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego, Democrat. The money, he said, would help 37,000 residents gain access to the internet.
Georgia’s democratic leaders sent a letter to Lutnick’s manager and then NTIA administrator Adam Cassady, urging the restoration of money, noting that the federal cut is ignoring Congress’s intention and violating the public’s confidence.
The creator of the law, Senator Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Said during a press conference in May that Republican rulers in 2024 supported the law and his funding when each state completed the required digital shares and requested resources.
“I can’t believe that there are no Republican rulers out there who are going to join us to fight back to it,” Murray said, adding “the other way is through the courts.”
All 50 states developed digital stock plans after months of catering, surveys and public comments. NTIA Digital Equity Director Angela Thi Bennett, during an August 2024 interview with KFF Health News, said that the “Community Participation” by the Federal and State Leaders to deliver broadband connections to non -disposal communities was “the largest communities. Our.
Bennett could not be approached for comments in this article. NTIA spokesman Stephen Yusko said the organization “would not be able to host” a request for an interview with Thi Bennett and did not answer questions about this article.
Caroline Stratton, Director of Research at the Benton Institute for Society & Society, said the funding of the law allowed the offices of states. Identify existing high -speed internet programs, including those operating in other state organizations; and create plans to fill the gaps.
“This has sent people to look for,” Stratton said, to see if the organizations in the state were already working on health improvement plans and to wonder if broadband could contribute and “actively help the needle move”.
State grant applications included objectives for promoting access to health care. In Mississippi, the plan consists of the state university and the plan to improve the health of another organization, Stratton said.
While states had to create programs that would help specific covered populations, some states modified the language or added subcategories to include other populations. Colorado’s plan included immigrants and “people facing a lack of roof”.
“In every state, there is a loss,” said Angela Siefer, executive director of the National Digital Integration Alliance. The non -profit organization, which was awarded almost $ 26 million to work with organizations at national level but did not receive any funds, filed a lawsuit on October 7, seeking to force Trump and the administration to distribute the money.
“The digital gap is not over,” Siefer said.
The subsidy of the non -profit organization was designed to support digital navigation in 11 states and territories, including waiters. Its employer, the non -profit programs of Western Alabama, is expected to receive a $ 1.4 million grant.
For the past two years, waiters have spent hours driving the streets of Alabama to reach the residents. It has distributed 648 devices-sophisticated computers, tablets and SIM cards-and has helped hundreds of customers through 117 two-hour digital skills courses, higher centers and development programs in the workplace in and around Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
The people of “all races, all ages, all financial backgrounds” who do not “fit our typical minority category” helped through her work, the waiters said. Trump and his administration should know, he said, “What really looks like the people I serve.”
