New report highlights Black household energy burden in Georgia

Last Thursday, researchers from Georgia Tech released a report titled “Energy Burdens of Black Households in Georgia” that analyzed the disproportionate effects of energy burdens on Black households in the state and its ramifications.   

The report, more than 40 pages, is divided into seven sections that look at the problem of energy burden in Black households from a number of angles, both quantitatively and qualitatively. The main statistical study used around 1,800 households for the analysis.

Energy burden is defined as the percentage of a household’s monthly income that is spent on energy costs, namely electricity and natural gas. Previous studies have shown that the Southeast tends to have higher rates of energy burden than other parts of the country. 

This report  reveals that Black households tend to have higher energy burdens than similar White households. Part of the reason is due to the legacies of racism that still permeate aspects of society today, like where Black neighborhoods are found, access to resources, quality of housing units, energy efficiency and more. The report dives into this with the section titled “Historical and current impacts of structural racism on energy burden in Georgia.”

Generally speaking, poorer households, rural households, and other groups have been found to have high energy bills, too, and that in turn can lead to a higher energy burden if income isn’t high enough to offset it — which it often is not — said Ryan Anthony, a co-author of the report and current Ph.D. student in Public Policy at Georgia Tech.

“The poorest households in Georgia spent more on their energy bills than the average poor households in the U.S., but they also make less income than the average poor households in the U.S.,” Anthony said.

The report lists a number of categories — each with their own subcategories — as predictors of high energy burden: socioeconomic correlates, location and community attributes, housing characteristics, energy prices and policies, and behavioral factors. 

Energy burden became an especially hot topic in 2020 at the onset of the pandemic, when a vast portion of people were home all day instead of leaving their homes for work or school. Instead of homes using less energy during the day when people would normally be at school and work, residential home electricity rates generally increased as people stayed home and used appliances or heated/cooled their homes.

Anthony said that one of the strengths of this report is the number of ways the topic is explored. In addition to the larger statistical analysis, one section of the report surveyed 32 energy-burdened households on a more qualitative level to understand the decisions that have to be made by those with such burdens.

Being able to “paint these vignettes”, helps humanize the problem and have an intimate view into the harsh realities some households face, beyond just understanding their struggle from a statistical perspective, Anthony said. 

“Some of the consequences that people report they suffer because of energy burden are quite severe,” Anthony added. “The most common ones are service disconnections, utility disconnections — so having your water disconnected, your electricity, your phone, your internet — just being unable to pay your bills more generally.”

While utilities like water are not generally billed from the energy providers, people struggling to pay one may be faced with choices of choosing one or the other. The same goes for services like the internet or your phone service provider.

“Something that I knew before is that if a household can’t afford their energy bills, they might engage in behavior that is not good for their health, like not running their air conditioner when it’s really hot or not running the heat when it’s really cold to try and reduce their energy bill,” Anthony said. 

Some of the respondents in that survey also noted that they make sacrifices to their comfort level in their home to save money, like not setting their heating and cooling to appropriate temperatures to save on energy bills.

Anthony also says that while some of these outcomes were expected, others surprised him and other researchers, like respondents saying they couldn’t afford fuel in their car to get to work, effectively lowering their income for the month and exacerbating their situation.

These issues, overlaid with other metrics, paint a more fuller picture. Generally, those households struggling with energy burden would not be located in a place with robust access to transit or a safe, walkable commute. And with Georgia still having a low minimum wage like much of the Southeast, income levels do not keep up with utility bills.

Moreover, homes with a single parent tended to have less income and consequently, higher energy burdens, along with households with children. “Black + Children + Female Headed” and “Black + Children + Female Headed + Low-Income” had the highest vulnerability indicator frequencies, according to the report.

The report also makes a point to say that the energy bill may be being underestimated. Many analyses take the average energy bill of an area with the average income, but that doesn’t always properly reflect the poorest households who are at risk of suffering to the highest extent.

The report was made possible in part by funding from the Sierra Club.