NLIEC: Unaffordable Energy Bills Threaten Families' Health, Education and Employment

6/8/2004

From: Al Guyant of the National Low Income Energy Consortium, 608-886-3657 or Aguyant@msn.com

ST. LOUIS, June 8 -- Low-income residents of Missouri are forced to make extreme and often harmful choices in order to cope with unaffordable residential energy bills, according to a new study examining the impacts of energy poverty.

"The damage to poor families because of energy poverty is as bad as we feared, and we feared the worst," said Al Guyant, Madison, WI, chair of the National Low Income Energy Consortium (NLIEC).

Although Guyant praised Missouri's network of supportive utilities, government agencies, community action agencies, private fuel funds, and fuel oil vendors for their efforts at mitigating energy poverty, he said, "The study reveals Missouri's network is like so many others across the nation - they just don't have enough resources to meet even the minimum needs of poor families."

The NLIEC commissioned the study to measure the extent and determine the consequences of energy poverty in Missouri because the lessons learned there can be applied throughout the nation. The state has both urban and rural areas, and it has energy hardships from both cold winters and hot summers.

Of the 734 households that participated in this statewide survey, conducted between January and March 2004, more than three-fourths were living below the federal poverty level.

"The results of the study were both clear and disheartening," Guyant said. "What we found is that the lack of affordable residential energy has many serious impacts on low-income households already struggling to meet other bills," he added. "It hurts their social, economic, and physical well-being in areas ranging from hunger, health care and housing to safety, education and employment."

Key findings from the study include:

-- Households with incomes below 50 percent of the federal poverty level were paying a staggering 38 percent or more of their annual income for residential energy.

-- 46 percent of the households surveyed went without food in order to pay their residential energy bills.

-- 45 percent failed to take prescribed medicines in order to pay residential energy bills. And 93 percent of those who most often went without medicine also skipped medical appointments.

-- About 70 percent of the highly transient households were families that frequently uprooted their children, subjecting the children to disruptions in their education. Some 35 percent of the families didn't buy books or other school supplies in order to pay their residential energy bills.

NLIEC released the study in St. Louis at its18th Annual National Low Income Energy Conference, which brought together more than 500 experts, practitioners, and advocates from across the U.S. to address energy poverty issues.

"The findings make it clear that solving the problem of energy affordability should be a national priority and a priority for every state and every community," Guyant said.

"We must help ensure that more of the critical needs of America's poor families are met, such as staying put in stable housing long enough to educate the children. How will children ever get out of poverty if they get pulled out of school time after time as families flee energy bills and disconnections?" Guyant asked.

The National Low Income Energy Consortium is a broad coalition of public, private and nonprofit organizations and individuals committed to reducing energy hardships and crises faced by low- income families.

The complete study is published at http://www.nliec.org and was conducted by Roger D. Colton of Belmont, MA, a nationally known leader in energy cost research, who is with Fisher, Sheehan, and Colton.