The U.S. is headed into what forecasters expect to be one of many hottest summers on document, and tens of millions of individuals throughout the nation will battle to pay their energy payments as temperatures and energy costs rise.
A 2023 nationwide survey discovered that just about 1 in 4 People have been unable to pay their full vitality invoice for a minimum of one month, and almost 1 in 4 reported that they kept their homes at unsafe temperatures to economize. By 2025, up to date polling indicated almost 3 in 4 People are worried about rising energy costs.
Conservative estimates counsel that utilities shut off energy to over 3 million U.S. households annually as a result of the residents can not pay their payments.
This drawback of excessive vitality costs isn’t misplaced on the Trump administration.
On the primary day of his second time period in 2025, President Donald Trump declared a nationwide vitality emergency by executive order, saying that “excessive vitality costs … devastate People, significantly these residing on low- and glued incomes.”
Secretary of Vitality Christopher Wright raised issues about utility disconnections and outlined a mission to “shrink that number, with the target of zero.”
But, the administration’s 2026 budget proposal zeros out funding for the Low Revenue Dwelling Vitality Help Program, or LIHEAP, the federal program that administers funding to assist low-income households pay their utility payments. And on April 1, 2025, the administration laid off the entire staff of the LIHEAP workplace.
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Many individuals already battle to cobble collectively sufficient assist from numerous sources to pay their energy payments. As researchers who study energy insecurity, we consider gutting the federal workplace liable for administering vitality invoice help will make it even more durable for People to make ends meet.
The excessive stakes of vitality affordability
We work with communities in South Carolina and Tennessee the place many residents battle to warmth and funky their houses.
We see how excessive vitality costs power folks to make dangerous trade-offs. Low-income households usually discover themselves selecting whether or not to purchase requirements, pay for little one care or pay their utility payments.
One aged particular person we spoke with for our analysis, Sarah, defined that she routinely forgoes shopping for drugs with the intention to pay her utility invoice. One other analysis participant who connects low-income households to vitality invoice help in Tennessee stated: “I’ve gone into these houses, and it’s so scorching. Your eyes roll behind your head. It’s like you possibly can’t breathe. How do you sit in right here? It’s simply unreal.”
Sadly, these tales are more and more widespread, particularly in low-income communities and communities of color.
Electrical energy costs are predicted to rise with worsening climate change: Extra frequent warmth waves and excessive climate occasions drive up demand and put stress on the grid. Moreover, rising vitality demand from information facilities – supercharged by the rising vitality use by synthetic intelligence – is accelerating price increases.
Shrinking assets for help
LIHEAP, created in 1981, offers funding to states as block grants to assist low-income households pay their utility payments. In fiscal yr 2023, this system distributed US$6.1 billion in vitality help, serving to some 5.9 million households keep away from dropping energy connections.
This system’s small workers performed critical roles in disbursing this cash, offering implementation pointers, monitoring state-level fund administration and monitoring and evaluating program effectiveness.
AP Photo/Mel Evans
LIHEAP has traditionally prioritized heating help in cold-weather states over cooling help in hotter states. Nonetheless, recent research exhibits a have to revisit the allocation components to handle the rising want for air-con. The layoffs eliminated workers who might direct this work.
It’s unlikely that different sources of funding can fill within the gaps if states don’t obtain LIHEAP funds from the federal authorities. This system’s funding has by no means been excessive sufficient to fulfill the necessity. In 2020, LIHEAP supplied help to just 16% of eligible households.
Our analysis has discovered that, in apply, many households depend on a spread of native nonprofits, faith-based organizations and casual networks of household and mates to assist them pay their payments and hold the facility on.
For instance, a analysis participant named Deborah reported that when confronted with a utility shut-off, she “drove from church to church to church” looking for help. United Method in South Carolina obtained over 16,000 calls from folks in search of assist to pay their utility payments in 2023.
These charitable providers are an vital lifeline for a lot of, particularly within the communities we examine within the South. Nonetheless, analysis has proven that faith-based applications do not have the reach of public applications.
With out LIHEAP, the restricted funds supplied by nonprofits and the personal connections that people patch together can be stretched even thinner, particularly as different charitable providers, reminiscent of meals banks, additionally face funding cuts.
What’s forward
The $4.1 billion that Congress allotted to LIHEAP for the 2025 fiscal yr, which ends Sept. 30, has already been disbursed. Going ahead, nevertheless, cuts to LIHEAP workers have an effect on its means to answer rising want. Congress now has to determine if it’ll kill this system’s future funding as effectively.
Maricopa County in Arizona, residence to Phoenix, illustrates what’s at stake. Annual heat-related deaths have risen 1,000% there up to now decade, from 61 to 602. Lots of of those deaths occurred indoors.
AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin
We consider gutting LIHEAP places the objective of vitality affordability for all People – and People’ lives – in jeopardy. Till more affordable energy sources, reminiscent of photo voltaic and wind energy, may be scaled up, an growth of federal help applications is required, not a contraction.
Growing the attain and funding of LIHEAP is one possibility. Making home weatherization programs more practical is one other.
Governments might additionally require utilities to forgive past-due payments and finish utility shut-offs throughout the hottest and coldest months. About two dozen states presently have guidelines to stop shut-offs throughout the worst summer time warmth.
For now, the cuts imply extra stress on nonprofits, faith-based organizations and casual networks. Looking forward to one other exceptionally scorching summer time, we are able to solely hope that cuts to LIHEAP workers don’t foreshadow a rising but preventable demise toll.
Etienne Toussaint, a legislation professor on the College of South Carolina, and Ann Eisenberg, a legislation professor at West Virginia College, contributed to this text.
