Lifeline#

The Lifeline program subsidizes phone and broadband plans for low-income households. On behalf of the Federal Communications Commission, Lifeline is administered by the Universal Service Administrative Company, a nonprofit, through the Universal Service Fund.

Eligibility#

The FCC provides at most one Lifeline benefit to households with income below 135% of the federal poverty guideline, as well as to households with members that participate in Medicaid, SSI, and SNAP (PolicyEngine supports these three), as well as other programs.

Benefit#

Lifeline provides up to $9.25 per month.

Variable#

Hide code cell source
from policyengine_us.tools.documentation import (
    variable_summary,
    variation_chart,
)

variable_summary("lifeline")
Value
Metadata
Name lifeline
Label Lifeline
Entity spm_unit
Definition period year
Has a formula True
Value type float
Unit currency-USD
Documentation Amount of Lifeline phone and broadband benefit
Reference [https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/47/54.403]
Quantity type flow
Defined for All entities

Values by income#

Hide code cell source
variation_chart(
    "lifeline",
    additional_data=dict(
        spm_units=dict(
            spm_unit=dict(
                broadband_cost=40 * 12,
            )
        )
    ),
)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
TypeError                                 Traceback (most recent call last)
Cell In[2], line 1
----> 1 variation_chart(
      2     "lifeline",
      3     additional_data=dict(
      4         spm_units=dict(
      5             spm_unit=dict(
      6                 broadband_cost=40 * 12,
      7             )
      8         )
      9     ),
     10 )

TypeError: variation_chart() got an unexpected keyword argument 'additional_data'