Lots of people, maybe even you. One of the most straightforward ways to check your eligibility is to think about your household income.
Let’s say you’re the sole earner of a family of four in Washington, D.C. — if you make $53,000 a year or less, you qualify for the program. Meanwhile, a person in the same position in Alaska or Hawaii would have to make less than $66,260 and $60,960, respectively, to qualify.
There are other ways to qualify, too. If someone in your household receives federal assistance such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, Medicaid or even Pell grants for college tuition, you can sign up for the ACP discount. Ditto, if you already receive a “Lifeline” benefit for discounted phone service, or if you receive supplemental security income because you or one of your dependents has a disability or blindness.
But not everyone who qualified for the EBB will continue to get a discount under the ACP. Because the pandemic upended the economy and forced millions of Americans out of work, you could apply for the EBB last year if you experienced a “substantial loss of income due to job loss or furlough since February 29, 2020” and made less than $99,000 as an individual that same year. For families with two income earners, that cutoff was even higher, at $198,000.
Now that job numbers continue to rise, though, that handy little provision is gone. The result? People who have managed to bounce back from pandemic-era financial problems are back to paying full price for their bills.
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