Nearly one-third of US households face challenges paying energy bills

A new survey by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) has found that many households face challenges paying energy bills and often forgo other necessities to do so.

Specifically, 31 percent of U.S. households either had trouble paying their energy bills or were not able to sustain adequate heating and cooling in their homes, according to the EIA’s Residential Energy Consumption Survey (RECS), which cited 2015 data.

It also revealed that roughly 20 percent of U.S. households said they had to reduce or forgo necessities such as food and medicine to pay an energy bill. Further, 11 percent said they use less energy than they would prefer to keep bills down, while 14 percent said they received a disconnection notice for energy service.

The study also found that of the 25 million households that reported forgoing food and medicine to pay energy bills, 7 million households were confronted by that decision almost every month. Additionally, of the 17 million households who reported receiving a disconnection notice, 2 million said they got a shut-off notice nearly every month.

Approximately 6 percent of households, which equals about 7 million, said they were unable to use heating equipment at some point in 2015 because of financial constraints. Similarly, about 5 percent of households, or roughly 6 million, said they were unable to use air conditioning at some point in 2015 because of financial hardships.

These issues cut across all segments of the population as EIA found only minor differences across geographic regions of the country and between urban and rural respondents.