Detroit’s unemployment rate declined to 11 percent in February from 13 percent last year and 19 percent that same month in 2013, according to Michigan’s labor statistics office. But in neighborhoods like the 100 blocks that make up Hope Village, unemployment is more than double the city average, hovering around 40 percent in 2013, according to the most recent data from the Census Bureau.

Those areas are being left out for many reasons, including low education rates, poor transportation and fewer entry-level jobs. But lack of Internet access, city officials and economists say, is also a crucial — and underappreciated — factor. The consequences appear in the daily grind of finding connectivity, with people unable to apply for jobs online, research new opportunities, connect with health insurance, get college financial aid or do homework.

“It’s like fighting without a sword,” said Deborah Fisher, director of the Hope Village Initiative, a nonprofit effort to improve social services in the neighborhood. “Broadband access is a challenge and a major factor in economic opportunity and employment here.”

Julie Rice, a Hope Village resident for the last seven years, has found having limited web access a major obstacle in her search for full-time employment after losing her retailing management job more than two years ago. With a part-time job at a furniture store paying $10.88 an hour, Ms. Rice cannot afford a service to connect to the web, which can cost more than $70 a month.

So Ms. Rice has made Hope Village’s public library, Parkman, her career center. She regularly comes on the five days the library is open to search retailing openings, arrange interviews and take employment tests. The library typically extends her time online over the one-hour session limit. Even so, during a recent online exam for a store manager job at Ann Taylor, she ran out of time and was locked out of the test.

Ms. Rice, 57, is also applying for a small-business grant to open a retail gallery. But the process has taken several months because she has to wait until library hours to watch informational videos, work on the online application and sign up for networking events. She could do some tasks on her old Samsung Galaxy smartphone, but she said it was too difficult to file applications on a small screen.