About 29 million households were unable to pay their energy bills last year, according to a survey that says cold winter weather and rising utility bills will only make the crisis worse.
Data from the US Census Bureau shows that many more American families — 43 million households — have cut spending on groceries, medicines and doctor visits to pay energy bills.
The research reveals fault lines in the US, with southern Republican states such as Texas, Mississippi and West Virginia having higher numbers of troubled families, while Washington DC, Vermont and Delaware are least affected.
The poll by financial website LendingTree comes as the White House unveiled plans to spend $13 billion to cut energy bills for poorer families, with help for heating bills and unpaid utility bills this winter
With just days before the midterm elections, voters are increasingly focused on the economy and the cost of living crisis, meaning President Joe Biden’s Democratic Party could well lose control of Congress to Republicans.
Texas, Mississippi and West Virginia are home to larger numbers of families struggling to pay their energy bills, while Washington DC, Vermont and Delaware have been least affected
“Inflation continues to take a brutal toll on some Americans,” Matt Schulz, a credit analyst involved in the study, told .
“It has reduced their already razor-thin margin of financial error to zero, getting them to the point where they have to cut some basic spending just to keep the lights on.”
Researchers found that nearly a quarter of households could not pay their energy bills in full in the past year, and more than a third had reduced or omitted basic expenses, such as medicines or groceries, to pay a bill.
A fifth of households turned their heating or air conditioning down to the point where the temperature in their home felt “unsafe or unhealthy,” researchers said.
For ailing families, the “situation will not improve anytime soon,” warned Schulz.
has spoken to dozens of households across the US who say they are struggling to make ends meet, and on Wednesday many took to social media to express their concerns.
“My energy bills have never been higher,” wrote an Oklahoma resident who accused the Biden administration of “bankrupting the country.” A New Yorker, meanwhile, said he’s “never paid more” for electricity.
“I can only imagine what our bills will be like in his winter,” he added.
The study echoes findings from the National Energy Assistance Directors Association (NEADA), which said last month that about one in six households is in arrears on their electric or gas bills — an underpayment of $16.1 billion nationwide.
US households now owe $16 billion in late energy bills, double what they were before the pandemic
An elderly woman with a gas bill sits next to a radiator. Consumers could pay 28 percent more to heat their homes this winter
“The rise in residential energy bills this winter will put millions of low-income families at risk of falling behind on their energy bills,” said NEADA Director Mark Wolfe.
Many have “no choice but to make difficult decisions between paying for groceries, medicines and rent.”
As cold winter weather approaches and energy bills soar this year amid global supply shortages, inflation will still soar to record highs and gas prices will still be higher than when Biden first took office.
US consumers can expect to pay up to 28 percent more to heat their homes this winter than they did last year, the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in its Winter Fuels Outlook last month.
The average household will spend about $931 on gas heating and about $1,359 on electric heating this winter, the EIA said. That’s a 28 percent increase for gas and a 10 percent increase for electric compared to last year.
Anderson Fuel’s Corey Carlson fills a house with heating oil in Scituate, Massachusetts. The cost of heating a home with oil this winter will rise 27 percent to $2,354
About 90 percent of the 130 million homes in the United States rely on natural gas or electricity for heating. The rest is heated with either heating oil, propane gas or wood.
Households using heating oil will spend about $2,354 on heating this winter, up 27 percent from last year, while costs for propane users will rise 5 percent to $1,668, the EIA says.
Despite the sharp rise in costs, gas will remain the country’s cheapest heat source
With a looming energy bill crisis, the Biden administration said on Wednesday it would allocate $13.5 billion to help low-income U.S. households cut their heating bills this winter.
Under the program, the Department of Health and Human Services is providing $4.5 billion in low-income relief funds, it said in a statement.
Separately, the Department of Energy will spend $9 billion to help about 1.6 million households upgrade their homes to reduce energy bills.
Electricity prices have surged in the US, hitting a record high of $0.166 per kWh in July
The funds will help Americans with heating bills and unpaid utility bills and home appliance repairs that will help reduce their energy bills, the White House said.
Although inflation has eased slightly from a 40-year high of 9.1 percent in June, the current rate of 8.2 percent is still higher than at any point in the previous four decades.
The average cost of a gallon of gasoline on the AAA website was $3.77 on Wednesday.
When Biden took office, before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine shook world markets, he was averaging $2.39.
The president got some mildly good news last month when it was announced that the country’s GDP grew 2.6 percent in the third quarter of 2022, the first time since the fourth quarter of 2021.
Still, the bleak economic omens come six days before voters choose a new Congress.
Voters in a Suffolk University/USA Today poll said inflation and the economy were their top pre-election issues, with 36.7 percent preferring them to abortion, immigration, crime and other concerns.
