Participation in the Emergency Broadband Benefit (EBB) program is higher in counties with high poverty rates

NOTES: Each circular data point is sized in proportion to each county's absolute number of households in poverty to allow comparison of counties of similar size or identification of the largest counties. Each county’s EBB take-up rate is calculated by dividing the number of households enrolled in EBB program by the number of households living in poverty. The denominator is based on the PPIC California Poverty Measure (CPM). Because CPM does not capture all the criteria that may qualify families for the EBB, such as losing income or jobs during the pandemic, it may undercount the number of eligible households. For this reason, the take-up rate can be thought of as an upper bound or a maximum reasonable estimate.