Recognizing the importance of access to high-speed Internet service, President Obama and the Council of Economic Advisers issued a statement on the current state (as of January 2015) of the digital divide in the U.S., titled "Mapping The Digital Divide". This brief contains a wealth of information concerning Internet use in the U.S. and its many relationships to income, geography, education levels, population density, race, and gender. It's also linked to two very useful resources: The American Community Survey and the National Broadband Map, both are valuable sources of information for librarians seeking to better understand their local community and/or help patrons do the same.
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| "Internet Adoption in the United States by County: 2013" from "Mapping the Digital Divide", https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/wh_digital_divide_issue_brief.pdf
As others have pointed out, the digital divide is not so easily categorized, analyzed, solved. The President and his advisers recognize the same: "The digital divide is likely both a cause and a
consequence of other demographic disparities, and
sorting out the precise impact of closing the divide is
more difficult than characterizing the current disparities,
as we have done here." Addressing the problem will require increased access to affordable Internet service, investments in training, and infrastructure investments. Time will tell how these plans close the digital divide in the U.S. and whether new challenges will have arisen by the time some of the old problems solved.
Sources:
Council of Economic Advisers, "Mapping the Digital Divide," https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/wh_digital_divide_issue_brief.pdf
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