Americans struggle to pay bills even in the summer

A summer of record-breaking heat dramatically increased electricity consumption for Americans, and many are now struggling to pay their skyrocketing electric bills. According to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) , the average household spends about $262 a year on air conditioning, with costs running up to $525 in the hot and humid Southeast.

Nearly 90% of US households use air conditioning (AC), with two-thirds of US households using central air conditioning or a central heat pump as their primary AC equipment. In 2020, the Midwest Census Region and Southern Census Region had the highest percentages of households using air conditioning, at 92% and 93%, respectively. The lowest percentage of households using air conditioning was 73% in the Western Census Region, a census region that includes households in different climate regions, such as the Marine Climate Region along the Pacific coast, where residential use of air conditioning 'air conditioning was 49%.

Obviously there are aid programs for families, but they are not enough. Compared to food stamps, which reach more than 80 percent of the nation's eligible population, the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP, falls far short even though there are entire states in the US, such as Arizona or much of Nevada, which would be uninhabited without the modern presence of air conditioning.

That's because most states run out of federal funding each year, according to the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the program.

So the USA will soon find itself having to study ad hoc programs to help energy poverty, especially in the hottest states.

---

---

The article Americans struggle to pay their bills even in the summer comes from Scenari Economici .

---

This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/poverta-energetica-usa/ on Tue, 15 Aug 2023 05:30:37 +0000.