How Coal Can Alleviate Pain at the Plug

Adjusted for inflation, American median household incomes have eroded six percent since 2007, and for some low- and middle-income families, energy cost are rising faster than incomes. More than just the pain at the pump most Americans experience with gas prices, high energy costs create a regressive tax for families trying to keep their lights on and their houses warm. A record one in three Americans qualify for energy assistance.

In the last decade, the cost of energy as a percentage of after income has risen by two-thirds for middle-income households. Today, the average middle- to lower-income family spends 20 percent or more of their take-home pay on energy expenses. The lower the income, the more disproportionate the energy strain becomes. Households earning less than $30,000 in 2011 – nearly one-third of all households in the United States – faced energy costs that consumed, on average, 27 percent of their family budgets.

Historically, energy has been far less burdensome on the family pocketbook, but today it competes with other fundamental necessities such as food, housing and health care. While federal funding for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) has helped alleviate some of these hardships, funding for LIHEAP was cut from $5.1 billion to $4.7 billion in 2011, and slashed again to $3.5 billion in 2012. The result has been a weaker safety net for lower income families that were already struggling to make ends meet.

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