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Figure 3. Percent of households accessing Internet anywhere, 2007 (Source authors using CPS data)
income by itself does raise one circular argument:
does non-use of the Internet lead to higher house-
hold income or does less household income lead
to less Internet use anywhere in the household
members' lives.
People access the Internet from many different
locations, including their homes, schools, librar-
ies, and at friends homes. Over 80 percent of
households with incomes greater than $40K had
household members make use of the Internet in
the home or elsewhere. While there was an over-
all gap between rural and urban households in
accessing the Internet anywhere, there was no
significant gap between rural and urban house-
holds of the same income (Figure 3).
While home Internet access is the most com-
mon location for individuals to go on-line, fewer
access the Internet at home than all locations
combined (67 percent versus 71 percent). This was
true across all regions of the country with home
Internet most common in the Northeast (Table 5).
The drop-off of home access rates between urban
and rural residents is larger than for residents
accessing the Internet anywhere, suggesting the
greater dependence rural residents may have for
going on-line outside of the home.
The rural South had significantly less home
Internet access than the rest of the country (Table
5). The South also had the greatest drop-off be-
tween urban and rural residents in home Internet
access. The Northeast again had little difference
between urban and rural residents. Sixty-two
percent of all households had access to the Inter-
net in the home (Table 6) as compared to 71
Table 5. Percent of persons going on-line at home, 2007
Metropolitan (percent)
Nonmetropolitan (percent)
Total (percent)
Northeast
71.4
68.7*
71.1
Midwest
69.2
61.4**
67.5
South
65.6
51.9**
63.1
West
69.8
60.6**
69.0
Total
68.5
58.1**
66.9
Source: authors using CPS data.
Note: Difference between metro/nonmetro ( ** -- significant at 0.01 * -- significant at 0.05).
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