Megan Waiters can tell the stories of dozens of people she's helped get online in west Alabama. A 7-year-old girl who couldn't do her homework online without a tablet, and a 91-year-old girl she taught to check health portals on a smartphone.
“They have health care needs, but they don’t have the digital skills,” said Waiters, a digital navigator for a nonprofit in Alabama. Her job involved handing out computers and tablets and teaching lessons on using the Internet for work and personal needs such as banking and health. “It’s like someone else’s space.”
These stories are now bittersweet.
Waiters is part of a network of digital navigators across the country whose work to bring others into the digital world was, at least in part, supported by a $2.75 billion federal program that abruptly canceled funding this spring. The shutdown came after President Donald Trump posted in his “Truth in social media” The platform said the Digital Equity Act is unconstitutional and promised “no more race-based handouts!”
Act lists who exactly the money should benefit people including low-income families, older residents, some prisoners, rural Americans, veterans and members of racial or ethnic minority groups. Policymakers, researchers, librarians and advocates said defunding the program, along with other changes to federal broadband initiatives, threatens efforts to help rural and low-income residents participate in the modern economy and live healthier lives.
“You can see lives changing,” said Sam Helmick, president of the American Library Association, recalling how they helped grandfathers in Iowa check prescriptions online or laid-off factory workers fill out job applications.
The Digital Equity Act is part of the massive Infrastructure Act of 2021, which includes $65 billion to build high-speed internet infrastructure and connect millions of people without internet access.
This year, Congress once again championed a modern approach to helping Americans by committing state leaders to prioritize new and emerging technologies as part of its $50 billion Rural Health Transformation Program.
A KFF Health News Analysis found that nearly 3 million people in America live in areas with a shortage of health care workers and where modern telehealth services are often unavailable due to poor internet connections. The analysis found that in about 200 counties, mostly rural, where dead zones persist. residents live worse and die earlier on average than people in the rest of the country. Access to high-speed Internet is among the many social factors, such as food and safe housing, that help people live healthier lives.
“The Internet provides an additional layer of resilience,” said Kristina Filipovic, director of research for the Institute for Business in a Global Context at Tufts University. Research group found in 2022 that access to high-speed internet correlates with fewer Covid deaths, especially in urban areas.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, federal lawmakers launched an infrastructure law grant program. Called the Affordable Connectivity Program, this assistance was aimed at giving more people access to jobs, schools and doctors. In 2024, Congress did not renew funding for the subsidy program, which involved about 23 million low income households.
This year, US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick updated and deferred infrastructure bill initiative known as the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment Program, or BEAD, after plans were announced reduce regulatory burden. More than 40 states and territories have submitted final proposals to expand high-speed internet to underserved areas under the administration's new guidelines, according to the administration. Department of Commerce Dashboard.
In May, funding for the Digital Equity Act was pulled just days after Trump's Truth Social post. While many states received money to plan their programs in 2022, the next round of funding intended for states and agencies to implement those plans has largely been allocated but not distributed.
Instead, federal regulators, including the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, the federal agency that oversees implementation of the Digital Equity Act – notified recipients that grants will be stopped. According to the letter, the grants were created and distributed based on “unconstitutional racial preferences.”
In January, Phoenix officials learned the city was slated to receive $11.8 million to expand internet access and digital literacy training, but on May 20 they received an email saying all grants “except for local entity grants” had been discontinued. “It’s a shame,” said Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego, a Democrat. This money, she said, would help 37,000 residents gain access to the Internet.
Georgia Democratic leaders in July sent a letter Lutnick and then-acting NTIA Administrator Adam Cassidy called on him to return the money, noting that the federal cuts ignored congressional intent and undermined public trust.
The law's creator, Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), said during an online press conference In May, Republican governors in 2024 supported the legislation and its funding, with each state touting the completion of required digital equity plans and asking for resources.
“I can’t believe there aren’t Republican governors who are going to join us in fighting back against this,” Murray said, adding that “the other way is through the courts.”
All 50 states developed digital equity plans after months of focus groups, surveys and public comment periods. NTIA Director of Digital Equity Angela T Bennett said during an interview with KFF Health News in August 2024 that the “intentional community engagement” by federal and state leaders to bring broadband to unserved communities was “the greatest demonstration of participatory democracy our country has ever seen.”
Ty Bennett could not be reached for comment for this article. NTIA spokesman Steven Yusko said the agency “would not be able to accommodate” a request for an interview with Ty Bennett and did not respond to questions for this article.
Caroline Stratton, research director at the Benton Institute for Broadband and Society, said the law's funding allowed states to staff offices; identify existing high-speed Internet programs, including those operating within other government departments; and create plans to fill the gaps.
“It got people thinking,” Stratton said, to see if agencies in the state were working on plans to improve health care and to wonder if broadband work could contribute and “actively help move the needle.”
Applications for government grants included goals promote access to healthcare. In Mississippi the plan is State University and another agency's health improvement plan, Stratton said.
Although states were required to create programs that would help specific populations covered, some states changed the wording or added subcategories to include other populations. Colorado Plan included immigrants and “persons experiencing homelessness.”
“There are losses in every state,” said Angela Sifer, executive director of the National Alliance for Digital Inclusion. Nonprofit organization that received the award almost 26 million dollars to work with organizations across the country but has not received any funds, filed a lawsuit Oct. 7 to force Trump and the administration to distribute the money.
“The digital divide is not yet closed,” Siefer said.
The non-profit organization's grant was planned to support digital navigators in 11 states and territories, including Waiters. Her employer, the nonprofit Community Service Programs of West Alabama, was looking to receive a $1.4 million grant.
Over the past two years, Waiters has spent hours driving the roads of rural Alabama to reach local residents. It distributed 648 devices—laptops, tablets and SIM cards—and helped hundreds of clients complete 117 two-hour digital skills sessions in libraries, senior centers and workplace skills programs in Tuscaloosa and the surrounding area.
Waiters said her work has helped people of “all races, all ages and all financial backgrounds” who “didn’t fit into our typical minority category.” Trump and his administration need to know, she said, “what this really looks like for the people I serve.”
KFF health news is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism on health issues and is one of the core operating programs of KFF, an independent source of health policy research, polling and journalism. Find out more about Kff.
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