Where America's Poor Pay the Most for Electricity

It’s one thing to pay more for electricity because you have a big house and lots of high-tech gadgets. For many of the poorest households in the U.S., though, the bill is disproportionately high precisely because they are poor.

There’s a shift underway in how Americans consume energy. That’s largely due to increasing efficiency, decreasing demand per capita, and the rapid expansion of renewable energy sources. Still, the share of income that low-income households spend on electricity rose by one third in the last decade, according to a new analysis by the nonprofit renewable energy advocacy group Groundswell. In fact, the bottom 20 percent of earners spend almost 10 percent of their income on electricity, more than seven times the portion of income that the top 20 percent pays. The report tracks the cities where the poor are hit hardest by electricity bills, and the results show stark inequalities.