It's supposed to curb fraud, but it may have punished the poor.
By Jon Fingas
The Ajit Pai-era FCC has spent much of its energy cracking down on claimed abuses of the Lifeline subsidy program, but this anti-fraud effort may be hurting low-income households more than it helps. The investigative news outlet Center for Public Integrity has used FCC data to determine that nationwide enrollment for cellphone subsidies has dropped by about 2.3 million people, or 21 percent, since
2017. The cuts have been particularly severe in places like the District of Columbia, where 49 percent of Lifeline users lost their subsidies between March 2018 and June 2019. Mississippi, Wyoming and Puerto Rico also lost a third or more of their enrollment in the same time frame.
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