But income, region, and ethnicity make a difference in penetration rates

92.8 percent of all households in the United States had telephone service in March of 2006, according to a new FCC report. The data comes from the Current Population Survey completed by the Census Bureau in that month.

Similar data culled over the last two decades indicates that that percent has not changed much over time. In November of 1983, 91.4% of households had telephone service. The percentage of such households has never dropped below 90% and has sometimes risen as high as 95.5%.

But within that context, marked inequalities still exist between low income and higher income telephone users, further contrasted by ethnicity and region:

• Households with incomes less than $20,000 enjoyed a penetration rate of less than 90%, while 97% of households with incomes above $75,000 subscribed to some phone service.
• While the average penetration rate remains above 90% nationally, some states dip below that number. New Mexico's penetration rate stands at 86.7%, compared to Minnesota rate of 97.4%. Other states with penetration rates below 90 percent include Alabama, Kentucky, and New York.
• Differences also remain between households classified as black, white, and Hispanic. White households enjoyed an 93.6 percent penetration rate in March 2006, according to the data, while 87.5 percent of black households, and 88.2 percent of Hispanic households, subscribed to a mobile or land line in their apartment, house, or mobile home.
• These ethnic differences flatten out, however, as income levels rise. No household group whose members enjoy an annual income above $75,000 has less than a 95 percent penetration rate.
• The differences between unemployed and working adults in March of 2006 were also not that stark: 90.6% and 94.3% respectively.

All told, 107.2 million households reported subscribing to telephone service in March of this year, but 8.4 million did not, a little over 7 percent of the U.S. population.