Fiber For Breakfast Week 49: Building a National Digital Skills Framework

Building a National Digital Skills Framework 

This week on Fiber for Breakfast, Gary welcomed Jessica Dine, Policy Analyst at New America’s Open Technology Institute and Wireless Future Project, for an in-depth look at one of the most persistent, and preventable, barriers to digital equity: the lack of a national digital skills framework. Dine recently authored Exploring Paths to a U.S. Digital Skills Framework, a report examining why the country still lacks a shared way to define or measure digital readiness, even as historic levels of funding flow into broadband deployment and adoption initiatives.  

Jessica explained that while broadband provides essential infrastructure of the digital age, digital skills ultimately determine whether people can actually participate in it. The problem? The U.S. lacks consistent terminology, measurement tools, and national process for understanding who is digitally skilled and who is not. She noted, “We don’t have a shared language around digital skills, and we certainly don’t have a shared way to measure them.” That gap is especially concerning given the long-standing data showing that 92% of jobs now require some level of digital skill, and workers with basic digital skills earn 23% more on average.  

Jessica and Gary also discussed why this work is so urgent now. BEAD will push more than $20 billion into deployment, but federal support for digital equity, device access, and digital navigation programs has slowed. Without a consistent way to track skills levels or measure the impact of local programs, states risk building networks that many households won’t fully benefit from.  

Beyond workforce impacts, Jessica highlighted how digital skills now determine whether people can access basic services. Everything from job applications to telehealth to government benefits requires a baseline level of digital readiness. Yet many households still struggle with tasks such as creating accounts, managing passwords, or recognizing online scams. This isn’t a matter of personal choice but of equitable access: without these skills, people are effectively excluded from essential parts of modern life, even if they have a broadband connection at home. 

Jessica emphasized that closing the digital skills gap can’t fully fall on one group alone; ISPs, states, local organizations, libraries, and trusted community institutions all play a role. But she also stressed that a national framework is needed to guide that work. “You can’t solve a problem you aren’t able to measure,” she said, noting that better data on skills and barriers would make it much easier to target interventions and justify sustained investment.  

The discussion closed with a look at what comes next. Jessica pointed out that current momentum around AI and “AI-upskilling” presents an opportunity to elevate the need for foundational digital skills. A national framework, she said, would finally give state and federal leaders the tools needed to understand the scale of the skills gap, and ensure that investments in infrastructure translate into meaningful digital readiness for every community. 

Click here to watch the full interview.