Americans’ concerns about being able to afford electricity and home heating fuel are elevated since the beginning of the Iran war. But newly released nationwide data shows that even before the war began, these concerns were widespread, long-standing and getting worse faster than the data can reflect.The new information is from preliminary reports based on the Residential Energy Consumption Survey, a representative survey of U.S. households conducted every four to five years by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. These early results show that energy insecurity, a hidden hardship defined as the inability to adequately meet household energy needs, affects millions of American households and is worsening quickly.As a scholar who has spent years sitting in hundreds of homes around the country, hearing firsthand accounts about energy insecurity, I turn to this survey data to quantify the suffering I have witnessed up close.AdvertisementAdvertisementThe latest tranche of data was collected in 2024 and released in March 2026, but full results won’t be available for some time. The preceding survey was taken in 2020, but results weren’t finalized until August 2025.Though that data is incomplete and slow to emerge, the picture is unambiguous: Even households once confident they could afford energy costs are at risk of falling behind on bills, making hard trade-offs to keep the lights on and living in homes they can’t afford to properly heat and cool.A pandemic success storyThe survey asks respondents whether, in the prior 12 months, they received a disconnection notice threatening to terminate their home’s electricity, gas or other fuel service because they hadn’t paid the bills. It also asks whether any of those services were in fact disconnected; whether they bought less food or skipped taking medication to be able to afford their energy bills; or whether they left their home at an unhealthy temperature because running or repairing the heating or cooling equipment would be too expensive.The result is a portrait of a significant swath of the population that has a hard time affording housing and energy, and who adopt various coping strategies to get through.AdvertisementAdvertisementA closer look at the data over time reveals that more Americans live with energy insecurity now than in years past. In 2024, 43.6 million American households – 32.9% of all homes – reported experiencing some form of energy insecurity. In 2015, that figure was 31.3%, and in 2020 it was 27.2%.The lower rate in 2020 confirms that pandemic-era government policies, including cash relief payments and bans on utility shutoffs, were effective, though they were too short-lived to last through the 2024 survey data.Recent surge hits new householdsMiddle-income households, those earning between $60,000 and $200,000 a year, were hit hardest by post-pandemic inflation of housing costs, food prices and interest rates on loans and mortgages. The new survey data shows that energy costs added to the squeeze.In 2020, 20.1% of households earning between $60,000 and $100,000 reported experiencing problems affording their energy. In 2024, 32.1% of those households did – a 12 percentage point increase, more than double the overall national increase of 5.7 percentage points.AdvertisementAdvertisementThere were also ra …
