About 8,400 Jefferson County residents 65 and older have no internet access where they live, 8.3% of the county’s seniors, according to the Census Bureau’s most recent estimates. About half of them, roughly 4,350, live in a home with no computer, tablet or smartphone at all.
In Wheat Ridge, the share is much higher. Of the city’s 6,138 seniors, 887 have no internet at home, 14.5%. In Edgewater, it’s 58 of 330 seniors, 17.6%, and in the Town of Mountain View, 7 of 79, 8.9%. Because Edgewater and Mountain View are small, the Census estimates for them come with wide margins of error, so they’re best read as a rough guide.
It isn’t only seniors. In Wheat Ridge, 2,409 households, 16.0% of the city’s homes or about one in six, have no home internet, and 1,328 of those get by on nothing but a phone plan. In Edgewater, it’s 605 households, 25.8%, about one in four, with 314 relying on a phone plan alone. Across Jefferson County, 29,220 households, 12.1%, have no home internet, including 17,834 that rely on a phone plan.
The Census asks each household whether it pays for internet service and what kind. A home counts as having no home internet here if it has no subscription at all or relies only on a cellphone data plan. A phone plan is a real connection, but it often comes with a data cap or slows down past a set amount.
Booking a doctor’s visit, refilling a prescription and checking test results increasingly run through patient portals and apps, and those are hard to manage on a small phone screen and impossible without a connection. For an older resident living alone, that can mean more phone trees, more trips in person and more help needed from family.
CompareInternet, which studies internet access across the country, found that more than half of U.S. homes without home internet get by on a phone plan alone. Across Jefferson County, it’s about six in ten.
For families and neighbors, a simple first step is asking whether an older relative can get online at home, not just on a phone.
Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey, most recent 5-year estimates, tables B28005 (age and internet access) and B28002 (household internet subscriptions). Full study: https://www.compareinternet.com/blog/how-many-american-households-have-no-home-internet/
