More than 900,000 homes went dark in Texas last summer because of unpaid bills, almost triple the number 10 years ago. In California last year, it was 714,000, the most on record. The tally across the country is in the millions, a sign of the economic stress that lingers after the Great Recession.
Utilities are disconnecting more households as President Donald Trump moved to end $3.4 billion in federal energy-bill help for the poorest Americans. Congress voted to reinstate the funding, but the administration has yet to release the money.
“It’s indicative of an economy that’s still recovering,” said Katrina Metzler, executive director of the National Energy and Utility Affordability Coalition in Washington. “Underemployment is still common, and many families live paycheck to paycheck.”
Most customers aren’t denied electricity for long. Utilities commonly work out payment plans or help customers get financial aid within a few days. About 10 percent to 15 percent of people who are disconnected never get reconnected, according to the Utility Reform Network, a San Francisco-based consumer group also known as TURN.
While the U.S. jobless rate fell to a 16-year low of 4.2 percent last month -- compared with 10 percent in 2009 -- many Americans are struggling. Forty-four percent of adults told the Federal Reserve Board of Governors last year that they wouldn’t be able to cover a surprise $400 expense or would have to sell something or borrow to raise the money.
The Trump administration’s 2018 fiscal-year budget scrapped the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP, because it’s “no longer a necessity” and subject to fraud. Mick Mulvaney, director of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, testified to Congress in May that 11,000 dead people were used as applicants to receive the LIHEAP benefit, a statistic cited in a 2010 General Accounting Office report. About 2.9 million households were disconnected for nonpayment last year in the 18 states surveyed by TURN, the San Francisco group.
First Administration
“The House and Senate have rejected virtually the entire administration’s Health and Human Services budget,” said Mark Wolfe, executive director of the Washington-based National Energy Assistance Directors’ Association. “This is the first administration we’ve had in a long time, however, that’s said, ‘We don’t think this program should exist.”’
Asked why Congress reinstated the funding, Wolfe said: “Grandmothers.”
Kelly A. Love, a White House spokeswoman, referred questions about LIHEAP to Coalter Baker, a spokesman for the budget office, who didn’t comment beyond Mulvaney’s testimony to Congress.