It seems reasonable that a program designed to assist those with low incomes should go only to low-income households. But the Biden-Harris administration is using a dubious mechanism to get around that expectation in a program designed to help low-income families pay for broadband internet service.
Congress created the Emergency Broadband Benefit Program in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, to provide broadband internet assistance to low-income households.
The program was supposed to last six months, but Congress made it permanent in 2021, renaming it the Affordable Connectivity Program and allocating nearly five times the original funding.
Although funding for the Federal Communications Commission program ran out in the first half of this year, Congress is working to renew it.
To qualify, households must show that they are low income. One way to demonstrate this: A household receives benefits from another means-tested welfare program such as the Lifeline Program or the Affordable Connectivity Program, which provide assistance with phone service and internet service, respectively. Another way to show eligibility: A member of the household receives a Pell Grant or is in a school lunch or breakfast program.
Eligibility through school meal programs is how the Federal Communications Commission is doing an end run around income limits for the broadband program. This is because of something called the Community Eligibility Provision that was included in legislation, the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, signed into law by President Barack Obama.
The Community Eligibility Provision allows any school to provide meals to all students if just 25% of the students come from low-income households.