Imagine this: You’re looking for a job, and every application asks for the same thing—upload your resume, attach a cover letter, complete an online form, and expect a confirmation by email. What if you don’t have email? And uploading a file feels like a technical puzzle? What if you’ve never used a word processor or navigated a website with multiple tabs? For millions of Americans, these aren’t rare obstacles; they’re a locked door to the labor market.
Despite being surrounded by smartphones and screens, as many as one-third of U.S. workers—including younger generations—lack the fundamental digital skills necessary to navigate and succeed in the modern labor force. Being digitally connected, or having an online presence, is no guarantee of the ability to use technology professionally.
Our recent research at RAND underscores the urgency of this issue. We evaluated a foundational digital literacy training program for economically disadvantaged adults who were predominantly younger, Black, and long-term unemployed. This free course, run by a local nonprofit in Washington, D.C., and Baltimore known as Byte Back, included 24 hours of hands-on computer instruction.
We found striking results among the almost 300 course participants we tracked: within two months of completing the program, their daily computer use doubled, digital confidence rose sharply, and employment rates almost tripled from 14% to 40%.
This wasn’t a coding bootcamp. These people were learning to compose emails, manage files, use search engines, and fill out online applications. Such foundational skills underpin most entry-level jobs and are often mistakenly assumed to be universal. Many students didn’t lack laptops but confidence. They had access to computers but didn’t trust that they knew how to use the tools well enough to apply for jobs or write a professional email.
This skills gap isn’t just a problem for applying for jobs; it’s a problem for actually doing most jobs. In a 2023 study of job ads by the National Skills Coalition and the Federal Reserve of Atlanta, researchers found that 92% of jobs—even for entry-level positions—now require digital skills. They’re necessary in every industry, in every state, and for corporations and small businesses alike.
Workers with even basic digital skills earn roughly 23% more—translating to about $8K in annual income.
Digital upskilling won’t completely solve the workforce woes of low-tech adults. Even those Byte Back students who had found work were still searching for a different job after completing the training. Foundational digital training helped them enter the workforce, but they were still on unstable financial footing. Many started the program in poverty with housing instability and long-term unemployment. For them, that first job is a foothold, not a finish line.
But footholds matter, and they’re too hard to find. There’s another asterisk to this story. Byte Back, the nonprofit that designed and delivered the training, closed its doors last year. Even though its training was a success, it couldn’t attract sustained funding.
Meanwhile, the federal government is spending billions to lay ultra-fast fiber to improve internet speeds from “high-speed” to “really high-speed.” But these huge investments don’t, in and of themselves, help people do more complex tasks online. How are low-tech workers supposed to get ahead of the impending AI-driven workforce transformation if they barely understand how or why to use the internet?
Teaching basic digital skills isn’t charity. It’s a pragmatic investment in workforce readiness and economic resilience. If the United States wants to grow its labor force and an economy that works for everyone, we can’t leave people stranded at the login screen.
George Zuo is a labor economist at RAND. Omari Jackson is an assistant dean at Towson University.