Blog Post

Many Families Are Being Crushed by Energy Bills, Especially in the South

Chart of the Day: Almost Half of Households With Children Were Energy Insecure

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Figure 1. State-level Prevalence of Energy Insecurity among Households with Children from 2022-2024, by Quartile. Adapted from Ceasar et al.

More than 25% of all Americans cannot pay their energy bills, but little research examines how this affects children’s health. Climate change and record-breaking extreme temperatures have made this issue even more critical for families.

LDI Senior Fellow and pediatrician Aditi Vasan, former LDI Associate Fellow Joniqua Ceasar, and colleagues sought to study the prevalence of energy insecurity among households with children and examine associations between energy insecurity and the likelihood of reporting other hardships, such as food insufficiency and unstable housing. They analyzed data from the U.S. Household Pulse Survey from 2022 to 2024.

They found that nearly half (49.2%) of households with children in the national sample reported energy insecurity. Energy-insecure households were more likely to be Hispanic, Black, and low-income.

Highest Energy Insecurity Rates Seen in Southern States

Figure 1 shows the state-level prevalence of households with children reporting energy insecurity. Mississippi had the highest prevalence, with 60.9% of households with children reporting energy insecurity. Higher levels of energy insecurity were concentrated in southern states.

Utility costs in the U.S. continue to rise. Electricity prices, in particular, are rising more than twice as fast as inflation, likely driven by a surge in data centers and rising natural gas prices. With utility costs continuing to rise, energy insecurity may be more common now than during the 2022 to 2024 period studied in the analysis.

Energy Insecurity is Linked to Other Hardships

Households behind on their mortgage or rent payments had 391% and 222% higher odds of reporting energy insecurity, respectively. Additionally, households reporting food insufficiency had 440% higher odds of reporting energy insecurity. The findings highlight the financial stress families face in meeting basic needs.

Policy Recommendation: Screen Better and Streamline Benefits Enrollment

The authors note that these hardships may compound one another. For example, paying higher utility bills may leave families with less money for food and other basic necessities. They recommend that pediatric care providers screen children with food or housing needs for energy insecurity.

To policymakers, the authors recommend integrating existing government support programs, such as the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). This could include conducting outreach for both programs at the same time and creating a single, centralized application application for both benefits.

Legislators could also expand LIHEAP to cover cooling costs in addition to heating costs, as LDI Senior Fellow Charles Leonard suggested in a STAT News op-ed.

The study, “Prevalence and Predictors of Energy Insecurity Among United States Households with Children,” was published in Academic Pediatrics on June 28, 2026 by Joniqua N. Ceasar, Sarah Revak, Marcus R. Andrews, and Aditi Vasan.

Author

Afrah Howlader

Afrah Howlader, MPH

Policy Coordinator

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