A person holds their mobile phone in San Francisco on July 16, 2019. Photo by Jeff Chiu, AP Photo
And from May 2021 until March of this year, the state allowed low-income families to leverage up to $75 a month in discounts from state and federal subsidy programs, to buy internet and cell phone services. Qualifying households could “stack” the subsidies from three programs, two federal and one state, to reap those savings.
The outcome of the proposal “is perverse, elitist, discriminatory and profoundly harmful to California’s low-income consumers,” six California Lifeline providers and the National Lifeline Association recently wrote to the commission.Some 1.7 million California residents are enrolled in the state’s Lifeline program, which is an offshoot of the federal Lifeline program.
Meanwhile California continued its own Lifeline program — one of three states to do so — with a $16.23-a-month discount for low-income households or those receiving public assistance. A family of four making $40,600 or less qualifies, for instance.At the height of the pandemic, Californians could stack the three discounts to purchase service from Lifeline providers, but that ended in March.
At least 30 members of the public wrote to the commission opposing changes to the discounts and defending their use of data. A few consumer advocacy groups took the opposite position, supporting the commission’s plan. They said some California Lifeline providers were charging high monthly fees for data plans that varied drastically in quality and services, and consumers weren’t always getting what they paid for.