America's Internet Plateau: Who Is Still Offline?

A Long Climb, A Flattening Curve

For most of the past three decades, the story of internet adoption in the United States was one of relentless upward momentum. From near-zero penetration in the early 1990s, access spread through homes, schools, libraries, and workplaces at a pace that reshaped nearly every corner of daily life. But the most recent data suggest that era of rapid expansion has given way to something more stubborn: a plateau.

In 2023, 93.14% of the United States population used the internet, according to data compiled by Our World in Data. That figure represents a modest gain from 2022, when the share stood at 92.20%. The year-over-year increase of less than one percentage point is consistent with a broader pattern of slowing growth that has characterized the past several years.

What the Numbers Reveal

The gap between 92.20% in 2022 and 93.14% in 2023 is real, but narrow. When penetration rates approach the high nineties, each additional percentage point becomes harder to win. The households and individuals who remain offline are not simply late adopters waiting for the right moment — they are disproportionately older, lower-income, rural, or living with disabilities that make standard internet access difficult or inaccessible.

Researchers and policymakers often describe this as the “last mile” problem, though in the context of digital inclusion, it is less about physical infrastructure and more about a constellation of overlapping barriers: affordability, digital literacy, device access, and relevance. A person who has never found a compelling reason to go online, or who cannot afford a monthly broadband subscription, is not reached by simply laying more fiber cable.

The Shape of the Divide

The roughly 7% of the U.S. population that remains offline in 2023 represents tens of millions of people. That share is not evenly distributed. Rural communities, particularly in the South and parts of the Mountain West, have historically lagged urban and suburban areas in both infrastructure availability and adoption rates. Tribal lands present some of the starkest gaps, where terrain and economics have combined to leave connectivity decades behind the national average.

Age is another powerful predictor. Older adults — particularly those over 65 who did not grow up with digital technology — account for a disproportionate share of non-users. This is not simply a matter of preference. For many, the interfaces, terminology, and assumed prior knowledge embedded in modern digital services create genuine barriers to entry.

Income compounds every other factor. Broadband subscriptions, even at subsidized rates, remain out of reach for households at the lowest income levels. The devices required to use the internet effectively — smartphones, tablets, laptops — represent significant capital outlays for families living paycheck to paycheck.

Policy Responses and Their Limits

The federal government has directed substantial funding toward closing the digital divide over the past several years, including programs aimed at subsidizing broadband subscriptions for low-income households and expanding infrastructure in underserved areas. Some of these initiatives have shown measurable results in specific communities. But the aggregate national numbers — moving from 92.20% to 93.14% in a single year — suggest that policy alone is not sufficient to rapidly close the remaining gap.

Digital literacy programs, often run by libraries, community colleges, and nonprofits, address a different layer of the problem. Teaching someone to navigate a browser, manage an email account, or evaluate online information requires sustained, in-person support that is difficult to scale. Funding for these programs has historically been fragmented and inconsistent.

Why the Plateau Matters

At first glance, 93.14% penetration sounds like success. And in historical terms, it is remarkable — a transformation of American life that would have been difficult to imagine in 1993. But the framing of “almost everyone is online” can obscure the concrete consequences for those who are not.

Access to healthcare information, government services, job listings, educational resources, and financial tools has migrated online at an accelerating pace. A person without reliable internet access is not simply missing a convenience — they are increasingly cut off from the basic infrastructure of modern civic and economic life. The gap between 93% and 100% is not a rounding error. It is a structural inequality with compounding effects.

Looking Ahead

The trajectory from 92.20% in 2022 to 93.14% in 2023 is encouraging in direction but modest in scale. If the pace of growth continues at roughly one percentage point per year, full connectivity remains years away — and the final percentage points will be the hardest to reach. Closing the remaining gap will require not just infrastructure investment, but sustained attention to affordability, literacy, and the specific circumstances of communities that have been left behind by each previous wave of technological change.

Source: Our World in Data. Licensed under CC BY 4.0.

Disclaimer: This post is generated from public datasets for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial, legal, medical, or professional advice. Figures reflect the source dataset as fetched on the date shown above and may have been updated since. Meridian Intelligence makes no warranty as to accuracy or fitness for a particular purpose.

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