Minnesotans have more access than Wisconsinites to fast internet that consumers rely on for everything from schoolwork and jobs to shopping and binge-watching Netflix, new census data show.

Access to broadband internet in Wisconsin is also worse for many poor and rural families, as well as racial and ethnic minorities, according to data that the U.S. Census Bureau calls its first-ever look at internet subscription rates over five years.

USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin analyzed the data and developed five key findings:

1. Wisconsin slightly behind Minnesota, Illinois

About 78 percent of Wisconsin households had a broadband internet subscription from 2013 to 2017, mirroring the national rate over the period but trailing states to the northwest and south. Minnesota had the highest rate of neighboring states at 80.8 percent.

2. Minnesota children had more access

Most children in Wisconsin had access to fast internet in their homes and they had access at higher rates than kids in Illinois, Michigan and the nation overall. But compared with Minnesota's 90.6 percent, Wisconsin was slightly behind at 87.7 percent.

3. Fewer subscribers in low-income households

Why is broadband internet more common in Minnesota than Wisconsin? One factor may be income. Like other Midwest states and the nation overall, access to high-speed internet in Wisconsin varies greatly by household wealth.

About 93 percent of Wisconsin households with at least $75,000 in annual income had access to broadband from 2013 to 2017. But only half of those households with less than $20,000 in annual income had access.

Dial-up internet is now rare in Wisconsin and across the country, so in most cases households without broadband have no internet.

A nationwide analysis by the U.S. Census Bureau compared counties where the median household income was at or above $50,000 and counties where the median household income was lower. About 76 percent of households had a broadband subscription in the wealthier counties compared with 65 percent in the poorer counties.

Minnesota's median household income in 2017 was nearly $66,000 — or about $9,000 more than Wisconsin's median household income, according to census estimates looking at the same 2013 to 2017 period as broadband subscriptions.

4. Fewer subscribers in northern Wisconsin

Waukesha, Dane, Ozaukee and Calumet counties had the highest rates for households with broadband internet. Mostly northern counties — such as Forest, Clark and Menominee — were at the other end of the spectrum in the state. More than one-third of the homes in those three counties were without broadband.

State authorities have been working to expand high-speed internet access in rural communities by awarding more than $13 million in grants to internet providers and infrastructure projects since 2014.

In September, the chairman of the state's Public Service Commission said improving broadband access was at the forefront of Gov. Scott Walker's rural agenda, and he touted a range of projects like installing fiber in the ground and new wireless units.

"Citizens in rural communities, who once thought they would have to move or visit their local library to use the internet, are now able to receive reliable broadband access in the comfort of their own home," Lon Roberts wrote in a public column. "These large-scale broadband buildouts will support economic growth, improved long-distance access to medical care and academic success across the state."

5. Fewer African American subscribers

The racial inequities for fast internet in Wisconsin are larger than in most of the state's neighbors and the nation overall. While 84 percent of white residents in Wisconsin had access to broadband, just 68 percent of black residents had access. The rates varied for Asian, Latino and Native American residents, too.

The distance between white and black residents in Wisconsin was 16 percentage points — about twice as much as Iowa over the 2013 to 2017 period and about 5 points above the nation overall.

Most of Wisconsin's black residents without broadband live in five urban counties —Milwaukee, Racine, Dane, Rock and Kenosha — where high-speed internet is widely available, according to Public Service Commission maps.

Rock County, the home of Beloit and Janesville, stands out with one of the state's lowest rates for African Americans with broadband. Around half of Rock County's black residents don't have access to fast internet.

In 2016, a national survey by the Pew Research Center linked lower access among racial minorities to income, noting that black and Hispanic residents were more heavily relying on smartphones as their only access to fast internet.

Compared with white smartphone users, the Pew center also found, black and Hispanic smartphone users were about twice as likely to lose service due to costs.

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