The Federal Communications Commission's E-rate program makes telecommunications and information services more affordable for schools and libraries. With funding from the Universal Service Fund , E-rate provides discounts for telecommunications, Internet access and internal connections to eligible schools and libraries.
The ongoing proliferation of innovative digital learning technologies and the need to connect students, teachers and consumers to jobs, life-long learning and information have led to a steady rise in demand for bandwidth in schools and libraries. In recent years, the FCC refocused E-rate from legacy telecommunications services to broadband, with a goal to significantly expand Wi-Fi access. These steps to modernize the program are helping E-rate keep pace with the need for increased Internet access. (Learn more about modernization of the E-rate program .)
The Federal Communications Commission has published a February 14 notice proposing to eliminate the E-Rate amortization requirement , which requires E-Rate applicants to amortize over three years upfront, non-recurring category one charges of $500,000 or more. Through this measure, the Commission seeks to further the Commission's goal of closing the digital divide by facilitating and promoting increased broadband infrastructure deployment to our nation's schools and libraries.
Comments are due on or before March 18, 2019 and reply comments are due on or before April 1, 2019. If extensions may be necessary, the FCC lists Bryan P. Boyle, Wireline Competition Bureau, (202) 418-7924 or TTY: (202) 418-0484 as the contact.
Census Bureau Releases Quarterly Workforce Indicators and Job to Job Flows
The Quarterly Workforce Indicators are a set of 32 economic indicators including employment, job creation/destruction, wages, hires, and other measures of employment flows. The QWI are reported based on detailed firm characteristics (geography, industry, age, size) and worker demographics (sex, age, education, race, ethnicity) and are available tabulated to national, state, metropolitan/micropolitan areas, and county.
The QWI are unique in their ability to track both firm and worker characteristics over time - enabling analyses such as a longitudinal look at wages by worker sex and age across counties, ranking job creation rates of young firms across NAICS industry groups, and comparing hiring levels by worker race and education levels across a selection of metropolitan areas.
On February 7, the Census Bureau completed the Quarter 4 2018 release of Quarterly Workforce Indicators data for all states.
Please see https://lehd.census.gov/doc/QWI_data_notices.pdf for release-specific data notices.
QWI data can be accessed via:
lehd.ces.census.gov/data/#qwi
lehd.ces.census.gov/qwi
qwiexplorer.ces.census.gov
ledextract.ces.census.gov
Job-to-Job Flows (J2J) is a beta release from the U.S. Census Bureau of new national statistics on job mobility in the United States.
On February 12, the Bureau completed the Quarter 3 2018 release of J2J data.
Please see lehd.ces.census.gov/doc/J2J_data_notices.pdf for release-specific data notices.
J2J data can be accessed via:
lehd.ces.census.gov/data/j2j_beta.html
lehd.ces.census.gov/data/j2j
j2jexplorer.ces.census.gov