A key federal program aiming to help disadvantaged households is not focusing on states that are increasingly facing “energy poverty,” according to a new study.
The study from Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers this fall found that a growing percentage of Americans who are struggling to pay their energy bills live in the South and Southwest, although the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) administered by the Department of Health and Human Services is not emphasizing those regions.
“If you compare where energy poverty is with where federal dollars are going, there’s a disconnect,” said Christopher Knittel, an author of the study and MIT’s associate dean for climate and sustainability. “A majority of the dollars go to the North, even though there’s more energy poverty in the South.”
The study, which was published in Science Advances, assessed the “energy burden” of 20,000 households, or the percentage of income spent on energy necessities such as heat. When the percentage rose above 6 percent, the households were defined as being in energy poverty.
