ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY STUDIES
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Fact Sheet: Electricity, the Poor,
and Weatherization
1987-1997
(Updated February 2001)
INTRODUCTION
The consumption and price of electricity poses a growing problem for low-income consumers. Preliminary data from the 1997 Residential Energy Consumption Survey (RECS) conducted by U.S. DOEs Energy Information Administration shows that households at all income levels continued to add electrical appliances and equipment to their residential energy usage in 1997, as they had through the preceding decade.
Consumers eligible for Weatherization are heavily burdened by the costs of electricity uses that WAP has not yet addressed. The expanded WAP mission proposed by DOE should make it possible to reduce this consumption. This would have even more dramatic impact on source KWH usage (The source BTUs are triple the end-use BTUs.). Pollution reduction potential is large, though it has not yet been measured.
Energy Expenditures and Energy Burden, the percentage of annual household income spent for residential energy, are the key measures of consumer needs.
The poor use less energy than better-off consumers, but the Burden of energy expenditures on the neediest consumers, measured as the percent of annual household income spent, remains dramatically high. This statistic was largely unchanged over the 1987-1993 period; more than half of the households in poverty spent more than 14% of their entire annual income on residential energy bills.
Key: Very Poor = in Poverty; Poor = > Poverty Threshold < 150% Poverty; Moderate Income = 150% Threshold to 80% State Median; Middle + = all other households.
Electricity bills made up nearly two-thirds of the energy bills of the poor in 1997. Most of this was the cost of baseload uses, i.e. not heating or cooling. The charts show these statistics for households in poverty.
Low-Income household use of household appliances, A/C, and electric heat grew steadily.
|
PERCENT OF LOW-INCOME HOUSEHOLDS |
|||
|
A/C |
1987 |
1993 |
1997* |
|
AC WINDOW UNITS |
33% |
34% |
32% |
|
AC CENTRAL SYSTEMS |
17% |
27% |
31% |
|
COLOR TV |
|||
|
ONE |
|
55% |
43% |
|
MORE THAN ONE |
|
39% |
54% |
|
SEPARATE FREEZER |
|
27% |
28% |
|
ELECTRIC CLOTHES WASHER |
|
61% |
63% |
|
CLOTHES DRYER |
|
47% |
51% |
|
DISHWASHER |
|
18% |
27% |
|
ELECTRIC HEAT |
12% |
28% |
31% |
*data is for all households below 60 percent of state median income, a larger grouping
Those with A/C and other appliances had higher expenditures than those without, but they had similar energy Burdens.
|
|
Have A/C |
Have Microwave and Washer |
No A/C |
No Microwave and Washer |
|
1993 Average Expenditures |
$1139 |
$1296 |
$971 |
$917 |
|
1993 Average Burden |
16% |
17% |
16% |
15% |
3
Data are from A Profile of the Energy Usage and Needs of Low-Income Americans, The Association for Energy Affordability, New York, NY, March 1999. The statistics for consumers with incomes below 150% of the Poverty Threshold are drawn from RECS 1987 and 1993 household level data and from RECS 1997 national data.
For further information, contact Dr. Meg Power at Economic Opportunity Studies
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