The Winter Energy Outlook for the Poor

Using the most recent fuel price projections of the Department of Energy (DOE) and assuming weather is normal, most of the nation's 27 million low and moderate-income consumers will face winter fuel bills that will exceed 25% of their entire income for six winter months.

Among the findings:

• Winter fuel bills for heating alone will average nearly $1,000 for fuel oil users and nearly $800 for natural gas-heated homes. Combined with basic electric bills, costs will exceed one quarter of the monthly incomes of oil and gas heat users.
• For the entire year 2000 and fall of 2001, all energy bills to fuel oil users will average $2306 combined, or 26% of their annual incomes. Natural gas users who are low-income can expect annual bills for all fuels that total just under $2000, devouring, on average, 22% of their incomes.
• The average for all low-income families taken together is lower for only the homes heating with oil and gas, but their bills will average about $1,700, the equivalent of 19 percent of their entire household budget.
• By contrast, the other 74 million U.S. households will spend, on average, between 4 and 5 percent of their income on energy bills, a figure more than the three to four percent they spent in the past few years, but far less than the burden on the poor. These figures represent a dramatic change from past winters because of higher prices and colder, i.e. normal, weather which are part of the calculations.
• The Northeast and Midwest will experience the largest increases because natural gas and fuel oil price changes are the most dramatic. DOE predicts winter oil heat bills will be 35 percent above the 1999-2000 winter and 65 percent above 1997-1998; winter natural gas bills will be 50 percent higher than last year; the study shows that the low-income population will experience even larger increases, 59% for gas bills in the Midwest and 43% for oil in the Northeast.
• As a group, all 27 million low-income families will be billed nearly $45 billion for residential energy between October, 2000 and next September. The federal government has made $1.85 billion available for payment assistance and $153 million for Weatherization conservation measures in low-income housing for the same period.