In talking about the economic impact of cell phones in the developing world, I often get asked about the impact of cell phones in the U.S. Nothing’s been written on it. So I dug into the topic and with the help of pollster Opinion Research Corp., which conducted a scientific random sampling of 1005 adults, and another Web survey of 110,000 Tracfone prepaid customers, I assembled some good data.

My conclusion? That Americans with household incomes less than $35,000 attribute $4.5 billion in income to their cell phones each year. And that if the 38% of these households that do not now have cell phones were to acquire them and earn money at the same rate, it would add $2.9 to $11 billion to income for these bottom two quintiles.

You can read the press release and paper (”Cell Phones Provide Significant Income Gains for Low Income Americans”), which is posted and hosted by the New Millenium Research Council.