Economic benefits of being online

The first report from Martha Lane Fox’s Digital Inclusion Task Force has highlighted the economic benefits of being online.

They have discovered that:

• 10 million adults in the UK have never been online and 4 million of these are socially excluded
• the 1.8 million children currently digitally excluded could earn up to £10.8 billion in their lifetime if they were to become digitally literate
• people who are digital literate can earn an average increase in their lifetime earnings of over £8000
• the government could save £900 million a year if all digitally excluded adults where online and communicating with the government instead of face to face

Martha Lane Fox has said:

“I think it is really important to show the economic argument behind getting people online. By being online there are massive savings for people personally, rich rewards for their career prospects and also big savings for the government.
Martha Lane Fox: over 10 million in UK never been online

Her aim is to have everyone online by 2012, the London Olympics, and hopes to achieve this through local community organisations and peer to peer networks.  To help with this the Digital Inclusion Task Force have launched the following website: http://raceonline2012.org/

Further Reading:

• Getting everyone online would save billions, says Martha Lane Fox
• Martha Lane Fox: fixing the holes in Britain’s net