April 24, 2025
Alison Coffey
When Diana Morgan Magda couldn’t afford to pay her gas bill, her utility shut off her gas service. The 58-year-old Ohioan, living only on social security disability benefits, spent months heating her bathwater with an electric kettle and lost the ability to cook meals on her stove. More than five months later, her gas service had not been restored. With her limited fixed income, she fell behind on her electric bill as well and began to confront the distressing reality that she might soon have to face the cold Midwest winter without heat.
Diana’s story is not an outlier, but one shared by millions of households in the United States. These stories of unaffordable energy costs, tough decisions about which bills to pay, and utility service shutoffs reflect the worsening crisis of energy insecurity for low-income people across the country. Today, nearly 30 percent of U.S. households struggle to pay for their energy needs, and 1 in 6 people are behind on their utility bills. Assistance and relief is more needed than ever.
For decades, the federal Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) has helped millions of struggling households keep their heat, air conditioning, and electricity running. But the vital support that LIHEAP offers to low-income people is now at risk.
On April 1, as the Trump administration continued its aggressive dismantling of federal agencies, it fired 10,000 employees in the Health and Human Services Department and eliminated its Division of Energy Assistance – the office that administers LIHEAP.
Current funding for LIHEAP is now stuck, and future funding is uncertain. Congress allocated $4.1 billion to the program for FY2025 and 90% of these funds were disbursed to states in October to help beneficiaries keep their heat on through the winter. $378 million in funding for this fiscal year remains, and has not yet been released to states.
As we enter the summer months in a year projected to be among the hottest on record, no LIHEAP staff remain to disburse these funds. Hundreds of millions of dollars allocated to support the life-saving cooling needs of low-income people now hang in the balance.
What is the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP)?
Created by Congress more than 40 years ago, the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program helps up to 6.2 million low-income people across the United States pay their heating and cooling bills each year. LIHEAP is a vital social safety net for many low-income people, including seniors, people living with disabilities, and families with young children – populations that are especially susceptible to the harms of exposure to extreme cold and heat.
As climate change makes extreme weather more frequent and severe, and as utility costs skyrocket, keeping up with energy bills has become more difficult than ever. However, LIHEAP does not only support people during “extreme” weather events like ice storms, arctic blasts, and heat domes.
Rather, for people living in states where temperatures approach or drop below freezing for much of the season, LIHEAP helps keep people’s heat running throughout the winter. And in states with long blistering summers, where access to air conditioning is not a luxury but a necessity, it protects vulnerable populations from the dangers that come with prolonged exposure to high temperatures.
Nationally, the vast majority of LIHEAP funds, around 80 percent, are disbursed ahead of the winter season to support home heating needs, while about 20 percent are released during summer for cooling assistance. However, as recognition grows about the deadliness of extreme heat (the number one cause of climate-related death) some states have begun allocating larger portions of their LIHEAP funds to cooling as well.
By helping low-income households pay their utility bills, LIHEAP funds help prevent hundreds of thousands of electricity shutoffs each year, and assist families in getting their electricity back on after shutoffs due to non-payment. In 2023, LIHEAP enabled 261,000 households to reconnect to electricity after a service disconnection.
Deciding Whether to Heat or Eat: The Consequences of Energy Insecurity
High utility bills force low-income households to weigh difficult trade-offs, make challenging sacrifices, and engage in adaptive behaviors that harm their health and wellbeing. Known as the “heat or eat” dilemma, people experiencing energy insecurity must decide whether to spend their limited income on keeping the electricity on, putting food on the table, or meeting other pressing needs.
Research on household energy insecurity reveals a range of coping strategies that energy insecure households use to avoid service disconnection. These can include:
- Forgoing food, medicine, transportation, or other daily essentials to keep the lights on
- Keeping the thermostat at unhealthy temperatures, and enduring physical discomfort or health risks that result, to keep utility bills low
- Using dangerous alternative heating sources, such as gas ovens or open flames, to stay warm
- Incurring debt, which may have long-term consequences for credit scores, to meet bill payments
These experiences of energy insecurity also reveal significant racial inequities: Black, Latino, and Native American households bear a disproportionately high energy burden compared to white households.
The Harms of Utility Shutoffs
When customers fall behind on their bills, many face having their electricity disconnected by their utility. Indiana University’s Energy Justice Lab estimates that utilities disconnect at least 3 million households (or 3% of all U.S. households) each year. Among households earning less than $20,000 per year, research indicates that the disconnection rate increases to 8%. However, because not all states require utilities to report disconnection data, the actual numbers are likely far higher.
Disconnections also disproportionately affect people of color. Even when controlling for income, studies have shown that Black households are disproportionately likely to experience a shutoff due to nonpayment.
When utility companies cut off a household’s electricity, people face devastating consequences. Among them, they lose the ability to keep their home at a safe temperature, to refrigerate food and prepare meals, to power life sustaining medical devices, to charge phones or use computers, and to wash and dry clothes.
A lack of adequate heat or AC can lead to serious health impacts, as it can exacerbate respiratory and cardiovascular illnesses, worsen diabetes and kidney disease, lead to hypothermia or heat stroke, cause emotional distress, and increase rates of carbon monoxide poisoning when people pursue alternative means to keep warm.
For many, losing access to heating and cooling can become a matter of life and death. A recent study found that lower heating prices lead to lower winter mortality rates linked to cold exposure. Indoor extreme heat is also particularly deadly: during the 2021 Pacific Northwest heat dome that killed hundreds of people, a majority were found in their homes, without fans or air conditioners. Research also shows that utility disconnection moratoria have the potential to save lives: analysis focused on the COVID-19 pandemic found that bans on utility shutoffs helped keep people at home, and reduced mortality rates by 7.4 percent.
What Can Be Done: The Need for Urgent Intervention beyond the Federal Government
Amidst the current federal cuts, a slate of actions and investments are needed at the state, local, and utility levels to protect households at risk. These include:
1. Ban Utility Shutoffs.
The most urgent action needed to protect low-income people struggling to pay their utility bills is to ban utility shutoffs. There is no federal law that prevents shutoffs due to nonpayment, and state-based laws vary. As of July 2024, 40 states and the District of Columbia offer protections during cold weather, while 21 states and the District of Columbia offer protections during hot weather. However, these protections are inconsistent: some are calendar-based and apply only during certain months, others are temperature-based and only activate with specific forecasts, and some are population-based and available only for certain demographics. Several states do not have weather-related shutoff protections of any kind.
While many states instituted temporary moratoria on shutoffs during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, many of those protections have since expired. Campaigns in various places have been pushing to keep these moratoria in place, and ensure they become permanent policies.
In the absence of federal legislation, advocates and policymakers may consider alternative routes to ban utility shutoffs. One is through Public Utility Commissions (PUCs), the state-level bodies that regulate investor-owned utilities. PUCs make important decisions about electricity distribution and affordability, and they exist to ensure that utilities operate in the public interest. In some states, advocates can intervene in PUC proceedings, hearings, and stakeholder meetings— which are open to the public—to push for shutoff bans.
States can also establish moratoria on shutoffs through legislation. For example, New York State’s Public Service Law protects certain customers, including the medically vulnerable, elderly, disabled, and blind, from disconnection. Lawmakers are currently pursuing amendments that would establish a universal ban on shutoffs during the summer and winter seasons. States such as Colorado have also used executive orders to provide relief from utility shutoffs during the COVID-19 pandemic.
A ban on utility shutoffs is long overdue. Even before the current administration’s cuts to LIHEAP, this funding was insufficient to meet the needs of the tens of millions of households struggling to pay their energy bills. Now, with the current threats to this vital source of assistance, expanding campaigns to end harmful utility shutoffs is more pressing than ever.
2. Cap Utility Rate Increases and Expand Income-Qualified Discount Rate Programs.
Limiting utility rate increases and establishing assistance programs for low-income customers are also crucial steps in reducing energy burdens. Depending on the type of utility, customers and advocates have various forums for influencing the rate-setting process. For investor-owned utilities, PUCs have the power to regulate the electric prices that the utility companies charge. When utilities attempt to increase rates, the public can advocate in public PUC rate case proceedings. Customers of municipal utilities and electric cooperatives have the opportunity to push for greater affordability with their city councils and elected co-op boards, respectively.
Advocacy has also been instrumental in establishing income-qualifying discount rates, crucial mechanisms for keeping energy affordable for customers struggling to pay their bills. Through a months-long advocacy campaign at their state PUC, a coalition in Illinois recently achieved a Low-Income Discount Credit that caps gas bills at 3 percent of a household’s income. In California, the Public Utility Code requires utility companies to offer bill discounts of 20-35 percent to low-income customers through the CARE program.
Utility-based discount programs, such as Green Mountain Power’s Energy Assistance Program and Portland General Electric’s Income-Qualified Bill Discount, also offer financial support that may reduce the bills of low-income customers from anywhere between 25 and 60 percent. In some cases, legislative advocacy may be needed to pave the way for low-income discount rates.
3. Expand State, Local and Utility-Based Weatherization and Energy Efficiency Programs for Low-Income Households.
Well-insulated and weatherized buildings enable residents to reduce their energy usage and lower their utility bills. However, low-income people are more likely to live in poorly maintained, energy inefficient housing, making weatherization and energy efficiency assistance programs a vital tool for alleviating their energy burdens. States, localities, and utilities have significant opportunities to provide or incentivize these upgrades. In Pennsylvania, the bipartisan Whole Home Repairs program allocated $125 million to support critical home upgrades that maximize weatherization and energy efficiency investments for low-income households. Many utilities and localities also offer programs to weatherize homes and provide energy efficiency upgrades. In a time when utilities are bringing in record profits, expanding the reach of these programs is both possible and imperative for reducing energy burdens and the risk of disconnection faced by low-income households.
LIHEAP provides a crucial lifeline to low-income households struggling to maintain a livable temperature in their homes year-round. With 1 in 6 households already behind on their utility bills, cuts to LIHEAP assistance put millions more at risk of having their power shut off – with lasting consequences for health, economic security, and daily survival needs.
Reinstating fired LIHEAP staff members and committing greater funding to the program in FY2026 and beyond are critical. At the same time, the current political landscape demands urgent action from states, localities, and utilities to protect vulnerable households that are unable to weather the harms of energy insecurity on their own.