Affordability and access in focus: Metrics and tools of relative energy vulnerability

US federal resource allocations are inconsistent with concentrations of energy poverty

Recent data from the US Energy Information Administration reveals that nearly one in three households in the United States report experiencing energy poverty, and this number is only expected to rise. Federal assistance programs exist, but allocations across states have been nearly static since 1984, while the distribution of energy poverty is dynamic in location and time. We implement a LASSO-based machine learning approach using sociodemographic and geographical information to estimate energy burden in each US census tract for 2015 and 2020. We then compare the allocation to states from the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program to an optimized allocation. We allocate funds to the most burdened households, providing them with enough assistance to reduce their energy expenditures so that their household energy burden is equal to a new maximum allowable energy burden. This markedly shifts funds from the northern cold-weather states to the southern warm-weather states.

A measurement strategy to address disparities across household energy burdens

Energy inequity is an issue of increasing urgency. Few policy-relevant datasets evaluate the energy burden of typical American households. Here, we develop a framework using Net Energy Analysis and household socioeconomic data to measure systematic energy inequity among critical groups that need policy attention. We find substantial instances of energy poverty in the United States - 16% of households experience energy poverty as presently defined as spending more than 6% of household income on energy expenditures. More than 5.2 million households above the Federal Poverty Line face energy poverty, disproportionately burdening Black, Hispanic, and Native American communities. For solar, wind, and energy efficiency to address socioeconomic mobility, programs must reduce energy expenditures by expanding eligibility requirements for support and access to improved conservation measures, efficiency upgrades, and distributed renewables. We recommend the United States develop a more inclusive federal energy poverty categorization that increases assistance for household energy costs.

Exploring the Nexus of Energy Burden, Social Capital, and Environmental Quality in Shaping Health in US Counties

The United States spends more on health care than any other OECD country, yet the nation's health is declining. Recent research has identified multiple sources for this decline, including one's position in social and economic structures, environmental quality, and individual and collective social capital. This paper assesses the primary hypotheses that the health effects of household energy burden, social capital and environmental quality on aggregated community health levels remain while controlling for other determinants. The analysis moves beyond prior research by integrating multiple secondary data sources to assess those effects across US counties. Three indicators of public health are analyzed (premature mortality, self-reported health, and life expectancy). The county-level energy burden is measured by the percent of household income spent on housing energy bills for low- and moderate-income households. In addition to energy burden, social capital, environmental quality and other determinants are included in the analysis. The results produced by multivariate regression models support the primary hypotheses, even while a number of control variables also have a significant effect on health. The paper concludes that public health is associated with a complex nexus of factors, including environmental quality and social capital, and that energy burden needs to be among the considerations.