Digital Inequality and Access by Low-Income Individuals to Public Benefits

This study presents novel data on digital inequality to describe differences in individuals’ online interactions with public and private sector services. Using two-month smartphone tracking data collected every five seconds from 65 low- and high-income U.S. adults ( N = 13,498,584 screens), we assessed when individuals did and did not face obstacles during interactions with public benefits programs and commercial financial services (e.g., banks, credit cards). Drawing on theories of time inequal