As temperatures cool and Americans’ dissatisfaction with the economy grows, families across the country are staring down a winter season that will be more expensive than ever, punctuated by rising energy bills on top of the already high cost of living. This year, industry experts estimate it will cost families an average of $976 to heat their homes during the winter season—a 7.6 percent price increase that follows record-breaking cooling costs during the summer.
Rising utility costs are already taking a toll on family finances. The Century Foundation and Protect Borrowers’ analysis of consumer credit data shows an avalanche of household utility debt has been building over the past three years and will likely worsen in the months ahead. Specifically, our analysis shows that:
Families can’t keep up: rising energy bills are driving more households deeper into debt. Since 2022, the average overdue balance on utility bills climbed from $597 to $789—a 32 percent increase.
- Black and Asian consumers carry the highest average overdue utility balances, approaching $900, compared to $750 for white consumers.
- Deep subprime households who are already financially vulnerable are being hit the hardest, with past-due utility balances jumping from $643 to $834—debts that can mushroom through interest and penalties
Millions are facing severe utility debt heading into the winter months. Nearly one in twenty households—equivalent to roughly 14 million Americans—have utility debt so severe that it was sent or soon will be sent to collections. The rates are nearly twice as high in parts of the South and Appalachia. These consumers live in states with harsher collection practices that drive one in twelve households to face added strain on family budgets and credit.
- In the first six months of President Trump’s second term, we estimate that the number of households with severely overdue utility debt increased by roughly 117,000—a 3.8 percent rise.
- Across the Atlantic coast and in parts of the Midwest, overdue utility balances total more than $1,500 on average.
Utility prices are on the rise across the country. Comparing twelve-month moving averages from March 2022 to June 2025 (to adjust for seasonality), monthly energy costs (in the part of the sample that reports on-time payments of bills relating to home electricity, gas, and other fuels) nationwide rose from $196 to $265—a 35 percent jump, or nearly three times overall inflation during that period.
- No corner of the country is immune from energy price hikes: while states in the Northeast face the highest average utility bills of $300 or more, states such as Arizona ($289), California ($303), and Texas ($269) are also hit with punishingly high prices, likely due to heavy cooling demands.
Energy and utility bills are not luxury goods; they are core expenses in a family’s budget. Keeping the lights on is fundamental to one’s ability to live a healthy, stable life. The sharp spike in monthly utility bills and overdue balances serves as a warning sign that a growing number of households cannot keep up with basic necessities and are falling into debt as a result. For older Americans, particularly those with fixed incomes, rising utility bills pose outsized risks—jeopardizing seniors’ access to safe, stable housing and increasing economic insecurity more broadly.
Unfortunately, this energy cost crisis is likely to get worse. Electricity markets today are broken, with poorly regulated monopolies overcharging customers to the tune of $5 billion a year. Federal regulations allow utilities to earn profits based on what they build, rather than on the reliability of performance—leading to underinvestment in any efficiency improvements in electricity transmission that could lower costs. Moreover, the explosion of AI data centers, and the growing demand for energy they require, is driving up the cost of energy, sending household utility bills through the roof. And the Trump administration has added fuel to the fire, taking actions that directly contribute to rising utility costs by impeding renewable energy generation while simultaneously dismantling the support systems in place to protect low-income Americans from utility debt.
The energy cost crisis is not sustainable. Working families are already on the brink—with millions forced to skip meals, dip into their savings, and turn to credit cards and other risky financial products and practices just to get by. For many Americans, higher heating costs this winter could be the tipping point.
Monthly Energy Bills Are Rising Across the Country
Our analysis shows that from March 2022 to June 2025, average monthly energy bills rose from $196 to $265—a 35 percent jump, or nearly three times overall inflation during that period (see Figure 1). What’s worrisome is that the trend is getting worse since the start of the year: nearly one-fourth of that three-year increase came in the past two quarters alone. According to our data and the consumer price index, home energy prices are surging past other costs, with the average family getting an annual price hike of over $800 for these bills.
FIGURE 1
No corner of the country is safe from rising energy costs. While states in the Northeast face some of the highest average monthly bills of $300 or more, heavy demand for cooling elsewhere means that families in states such as Arizona ($289), California ($303), Texas ($269), and across the Southeast are also getting hit with punishingly high energy costs (see Figures 2 and 3). Because our analysis (through June 2025) precedes peak summer temperatures, it is safe to assume that millions of families today are facing even higher costs than what is shown here.
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 3
A Tipping Point: For Millions, Energy Debt Is Severe
For millions of families, rising energy bills and past-due balances represent a crisis. As of June 2025, we find that nearly one in twenty households—or roughly 14 million Americans—have debt so severe it was sent to collections or in arrears. This figure climbs to roughly one in twelve in parts of the South and Appalachia, nearly twice the rates as the national average (see Figure 4).
FIGURE 4
Across the Atlantic coast and in parts of the Midwest, overdue utility balances total more than $1,500, driven in part by colder climates, older housing, and pricier heating fuels (see Figure 5). Many of these states also limit winter shutoffs, which allow unpaid balances to carry through the cold months. Yet, lower past-due balances in other states do not necessarily mean less hardship, as they can reflect faster escalation to disconnection and collection. In these regions, families struggling to pay utility bills are likely being sent to collections much earlier, putting them on a faster path to financial ruin.
FIGURE 5
Many families today are on the brink of having their power shut off. In the first six months of President Trump’s second term, we estimate that the number of households with severely overdue utility debt increased by roughly 117,000—a 3.8 percent rise.
As alarming as these findings are, they represent a fraction of the true crisis, since many utility companies report overdue accounts only after households become severely delinquent—often 120 days or more past due—and have been sold to a collection agency. Therefore, this data captures only the most extreme cases of financial distress, long after a family has fallen deep into debt.
Higher Energy Bills Are Pushing Families Deeper Into Debt
Families simply can’t keep up with rising energy costs. Since 2022, the average overdue balance on utility bills climbed from $597 to $789—a 32 percent increase, or 2.7 times overall inflation (see Figure 6).
FIGURE 6
The burden of this utility debt is not felt equally, falling hardest on households that were already financially vulnerable. As of June 2025, 10.8 percent of Black households carry an overdue utility balance, which is roughly three times the rate for white households (3.6 percent). Among those with past-due bills, Black and Asian consumers carry the highest overdue utility balances, approaching $900, compared to $750 for white consumers (see Figure 7). Energy insecurity follows the same racial fault lines as broader economic inequality, leaving communities of color more exposed to high balances and with less access to assistance.
FIGURE 7
For deep subprime households—those with credit scores below 580—the average past-due balance climbed from $643 in 2022 to $834 by June 2025, a 30 percent jump (see Figure 8). While the data set does not have individual income, it does show that deep subprime households disproportionately reside in low-income and urban neighborhoods and are thus more likely to have low income. These consumers are being especially pressed by the high cost of housing, food, child care, and transportation—and too often there’s not enough left over to pay the utility bill. Not only does this leave them vulnerable to power cuts, but also it can be one more factor that further increases their cost of living and makes them vulnerable to having to take on new, costly debt just to make ends meet.
FIGURE 8
One might expect super-prime borrowers from more affluent households to spend more on home energy, and that trend was evident at the start of the period analyzed. But in recent quarters, utility bills have converged among credit scores, with deep subprime households actually paying more than individuals with better credit scores (see Figure 9). That’s because the fixed costs of delivering electricity to households are one of the fastest rising parts of energy bills, as companies pass along spending on transmission to households.
FIGURE 9
Conclusion
Our findings paint a grim picture: a toxic combination of increasing energy prices, rising overdue balances, and squeezed household budgets that together are pushing families deeper and deeper into debt. Furthermore, soaring utility bills are the tip of the iceberg for millions of Americans already overburdened by rising costs for health care, groceries, rent, child care, education, and more.
Americans want leaders to confront these high prices head-on and take steps to limit how utility companies use their monopoly power to rip off consumers. The utility industry has been rife with mega-mergers (that have consolidated eighty-three companies into only thirteen) that have led to windfall profits for investors by stifling competition with little benefit to consumers. It leads to a consistent pattern of higher bills and poorer service.
Yet, instead of addressing these root causes of energy inflation, the Trump administration has made the problem worse—stymying the development of abundant renewable energy and threatening the assistance that families need to get through the winter. When millions of Americans cannot afford to keep the lights on, it is a fundamental failure of economic policy that demands a renewed commitment to bring down the price of energy and confront the crisis of utility debt.
Appendix: Data and Methodology
TCF and Protect Borrowers’ analysis uses individual-level longitudinal records from the University of California Consumer Credit Panel (UC-CCP), a 2 percent, nationally representative sample of U.S. adults with credit files. Within this panel, utility obligations appear on credit reports in two forms: (1) seriously past-due debts and (2) active (noncollection) utility accounts.
Identification of Past-Due Utility Debt
We define past-due utility debt as tradelines showing severe delinquency, captured in two groups: (1) accounts that have been sent to a third-party for collections, which constitute the vast majority (over 95 percent) of these observations; (2) accounts that are ninety or more days delinquent but have not yet been transferred to a collection agency. We isolate these records using original-creditor classification codes for “utilities.” This bucket includes electric, gas, water, and sewer providers. We can explicitly exclude only cable (Internet) and cellular utility accounts. Because energy bills are typically larger than nonenergy utilities, this approach provides a strong proxy for past-due energy debt; any residual inclusion of nonenergy utilities (with generally lower balances) likely makes our average-balance estimates lower than what they would be if we could disaggregate further.
Identification of Active Utility Tradelines and Monthly Payments
We also analyze active, noncollection utility tradelines furnished directly to the credit bureaus. Empirically, these look like open, pay-in-full accounts:
- Account current, no credit limit, and zero amount past due.
- Scheduled payment equal to the current balance for the cycle, with amounts that move up and down across months and quarters in line with usage and seasonality.
These are identified by classifications such as “electric light and power companies,” “gas companies,” or a “nonspecific utility and fuel” category. For this subset, we can explicitly exclude more nonenergy utilities (Internet, telephone, water, cable, and so on), leaving a set that primarily reflects energy accounts. Coverage is narrow and selective, as nationally only about 3 percent of consumers with utility accounts have tradelines reflecting routine payment history in their credit files. These records typically appear only when a utility opts to furnish ongoing billing or when a consumer participates in a credit-building program that adds verified utility payments. Despite the small share, the average payment amounts in this group align closely with external benchmarks for typical monthly household energy payments, making them a useful indicator of average monthly energy costs.
Tags: economic indicators, debt, utility
Fueling Debt: How Rising Utility Costs Are Overwhelming American Families
As temperatures cool and Americans’ dissatisfaction with the economy grows, families across the country are staring down a winter season that will be more expensive than ever, punctuated by rising energy bills on top of the already high cost of living. This year, industry experts estimate it will cost families an average of $976 to heat their homes during the winter season—a 7.6 percent price increase that follows record-breaking cooling costs during the summer.
Rising utility costs are already taking a toll on family finances. The Century Foundation and Protect Borrowers’ analysis of consumer credit data1 shows an avalanche of household utility2 debt has been building over the past three years and will likely worsen in the months ahead. Specifically, our analysis shows that:
Families can’t keep up: rising energy bills are driving more households deeper into debt. Since 2022, the average overdue balance on utility bills climbed from $597 to $789—a 32 percent increase.
Millions are facing severe utility debt heading into the winter months. Nearly one in twenty households—equivalent to roughly 14 million Americans—have utility debt so severe3 that it was sent or soon will be sent to collections. The rates are nearly twice as high in parts of the South and Appalachia. These consumers live in states with harsher collection practices that drive one in twelve households to face added strain on family budgets and credit.
Utility prices are on the rise across the country. Comparing twelve-month moving averages from March 2022 to June 2025 (to adjust for seasonality),4 monthly energy costs (in the part of the sample that reports on-time payments of bills relating to home electricity, gas, and other fuels) nationwide rose from $196 to $265—a 35 percent jump, or nearly three times overall inflation during that period.
Energy and utility bills are not luxury goods; they are core expenses in a family’s budget. Keeping the lights on is fundamental to one’s ability to live a healthy, stable life. The sharp spike in monthly utility bills and overdue balances serves as a warning sign that a growing number of households cannot keep up with basic necessities and are falling into debt as a result. For older Americans, particularly those with fixed incomes, rising utility bills pose outsized risks—jeopardizing seniors’ access to safe, stable housing and increasing economic insecurity more broadly.
Unfortunately, this energy cost crisis is likely to get worse. Electricity markets today are broken, with poorly regulated monopolies overcharging customers to the tune of $5 billion a year. Federal regulations allow utilities to earn profits based on what they build, rather than on the reliability of performance—leading to underinvestment in any efficiency improvements in electricity transmission that could lower costs. Moreover, the explosion of AI data centers, and the growing demand for energy they require, is driving up the cost of energy, sending household utility bills through the roof. And the Trump administration has added fuel to the fire, taking actions that directly contribute to rising utility costs by impeding renewable energy generation while simultaneously dismantling the support systems in place to protect low-income Americans from utility debt.
The energy cost crisis is not sustainable. Working families are already on the brink—with millions forced to skip meals, dip into their savings, and turn to credit cards and other risky financial products and practices just to get by. For many Americans, higher heating costs this winter could be the tipping point.
Monthly Energy Bills Are Rising Across the Country
Our analysis shows that from March 2022 to June 2025, average monthly energy bills rose from $196 to $265—a 35 percent jump, or nearly three times overall inflation during that period (see Figure 1). What’s worrisome is that the trend is getting worse since the start of the year: nearly one-fourth of that three-year increase came in the past two quarters alone. According to our data and the consumer price index, home energy prices are surging past other costs, with the average family getting an annual price hike of over $800 for these bills.
FIGURE 1
No corner of the country is safe from rising energy costs. While states in the Northeast face some of the highest average monthly bills of $300 or more, heavy demand for cooling elsewhere means that families in states such as Arizona ($289), California ($303), Texas ($269), and across the Southeast are also getting hit with punishingly high energy costs (see Figures 2 and 3). Because our analysis (through June 2025) precedes peak summer temperatures, it is safe to assume that millions of families today are facing even higher costs than what is shown here.
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 3
A Tipping Point: For Millions, Energy Debt Is Severe
For millions of families, rising energy bills and past-due balances represent a crisis. As of June 2025, we find that nearly one in twenty households—or roughly 14 million Americans—have debt so severe it was sent to collections or in arrears. This figure climbs to roughly one in twelve in parts of the South and Appalachia, nearly twice the rates as the national average (see Figure 4).
FIGURE 4
Across the Atlantic coast and in parts of the Midwest, overdue utility balances total more than $1,500, driven in part by colder climates, older housing, and pricier heating fuels (see Figure 5). Many of these states also limit winter shutoffs, which allow unpaid balances to carry through the cold months. Yet, lower past-due balances in other states do not necessarily mean less hardship, as they can reflect faster escalation to disconnection and collection. In these regions, families struggling to pay utility bills are likely being sent to collections much earlier, putting them on a faster path to financial ruin.
FIGURE 5
Many families today are on the brink of having their power shut off. In the first six months of President Trump’s second term, we estimate that the number of households with severely overdue utility debt increased by roughly 117,000—a 3.8 percent rise.
As alarming as these findings are, they represent a fraction of the true crisis, since many utility companies report overdue accounts only after households become severely delinquent—often 120 days or more past due—and have been sold to a collection agency. Therefore, this data captures only the most extreme cases of financial distress, long after a family has fallen deep into debt.
Higher Energy Bills Are Pushing Families Deeper Into Debt
Families simply can’t keep up with rising energy costs. Since 2022, the average overdue balance on utility bills climbed from $597 to $789—a 32 percent increase, or 2.7 times overall inflation (see Figure 6).
FIGURE 6
The burden of this utility debt is not felt equally, falling hardest on households that were already financially vulnerable. As of June 2025, 10.8 percent of Black households carry an overdue utility balance, which is roughly three times the rate for white households (3.6 percent). Among those with past-due bills, Black and Asian consumers carry the highest overdue utility balances, approaching $900, compared to $750 for white consumers (see Figure 7). Energy insecurity follows the same racial fault lines as broader economic inequality, leaving communities of color more exposed to high balances and with less access to assistance.
FIGURE 7
For deep subprime households—those with credit scores below 580—the average past-due balance climbed from $643 in 2022 to $834 by June 2025, a 30 percent jump (see Figure 8). While the data set does not have individual income, it does show that deep subprime households disproportionately reside in low-income and urban neighborhoods and are thus more likely to have low income. These consumers are being especially pressed by the high cost of housing, food, child care, and transportation—and too often there’s not enough left over to pay the utility bill. Not only does this leave them vulnerable to power cuts, but also it can be one more factor that further increases their cost of living and makes them vulnerable to having to take on new, costly debt just to make ends meet.
FIGURE 8
One might expect super-prime borrowers from more affluent households to spend more on home energy, and that trend was evident at the start of the period analyzed. But in recent quarters, utility bills have converged among credit scores, with deep subprime households actually paying more than individuals with better credit scores (see Figure 9). That’s because the fixed costs of delivering electricity to households are one of the fastest rising parts of energy bills, as companies pass along spending on transmission to households.
FIGURE 9
Conclusion
Our findings paint a grim picture: a toxic combination of increasing energy prices, rising overdue balances, and squeezed household budgets that together are pushing families deeper and deeper into debt. Furthermore, soaring utility bills are the tip of the iceberg for millions of Americans already overburdened by rising costs for health care, groceries, rent, child care, education, and more.
Americans want leaders to confront these high prices head-on and take steps to limit how utility companies use their monopoly power to rip off consumers. The utility industry has been rife with mega-mergers (that have consolidated eighty-three companies into only thirteen) that have led to windfall profits for investors by stifling competition with little benefit to consumers. It leads to a consistent pattern of higher bills and poorer service.
Yet, instead of addressing these root causes of energy inflation, the Trump administration has made the problem worse—stymying the development of abundant renewable energy and threatening the assistance that families need to get through the winter. When millions of Americans cannot afford to keep the lights on, it is a fundamental failure of economic policy that demands a renewed commitment to bring down the price of energy and confront the crisis of utility debt.
Appendix: Data and Methodology
TCF and Protect Borrowers’ analysis uses individual-level longitudinal records from the University of California Consumer Credit Panel (UC-CCP), a 2 percent, nationally representative sample of U.S. adults with credit files. Within this panel, utility obligations appear on credit reports in two forms: (1) seriously past-due debts and (2) active (noncollection) utility accounts.
Identification of Past-Due Utility Debt
We define past-due utility debt as tradelines showing severe delinquency, captured in two groups: (1) accounts that have been sent to a third-party for collections, which constitute the vast majority (over 95 percent) of these observations; (2) accounts that are ninety or more days delinquent but have not yet been transferred to a collection agency. We isolate these records using original-creditor classification codes for “utilities.” This bucket includes electric, gas, water, and sewer providers. We can explicitly exclude only cable (Internet) and cellular utility accounts. Because energy bills are typically larger than nonenergy utilities, this approach provides a strong proxy for past-due energy debt; any residual inclusion of nonenergy utilities (with generally lower balances) likely makes our average-balance estimates lower than what they would be if we could disaggregate further.
Identification of Active Utility Tradelines and Monthly Payments
We also analyze active, noncollection utility tradelines furnished directly to the credit bureaus. Empirically, these look like open, pay-in-full accounts:
These are identified by classifications such as “electric light and power companies,” “gas companies,” or a “nonspecific utility and fuel” category. For this subset, we can explicitly exclude more nonenergy utilities (Internet, telephone, water, cable, and so on), leaving a set that primarily reflects energy accounts. Coverage is narrow and selective, as nationally only about 3 percent of consumers with utility accounts have tradelines reflecting routine payment history in their credit files. These records typically appear only when a utility opts to furnish ongoing billing or when a consumer participates in a credit-building program that adds verified utility payments. Despite the small share, the average payment amounts in this group align closely with external benchmarks for typical monthly household energy payments, making them a useful indicator of average monthly energy costs.
Notes
Tags: economic indicators, debt, utility