MarketWatch: Falling into 'fuel poverty'

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Falling into 'fuel poverty'
More middle-income households crushed by home energy costs
By Stephanie I. Cohen



PRINCETON, N.J. (MarketWatch) -- Monthly home energy bills are eating up an increasingly larger portion of household incomes, creating an "energy burden" that has many American's dipping into their savings and using credit cards to pay higher heating and cooling bills.

"Fuel poverty"' has been a major policy area overseas, especially in the United Kingdom, with the term first appearing in the 1990s to denote families that used more than 10% of their income to pay for home energy costs.But research into the impact of energy costs on American consumers and the inability of U.S. households to pay fuel bills is now attracting more attention, especially as middle-class families show signs of struggling to pay bills for basic necessities such as heat and gasoline with costs surging over the past five years.

Rising energy prices are nothing new. What is new for some households is the combination of steep increases in heating and cooling bills along with an economic downturn, job cuts, higher food costs and mortgage woes. This confluence of factors has helped pushed more families across more income levels into an uncertain position when it comes to paying their energy bills.

"It's a problem of stagnant income and unaffordable housing," said Meg Power, who authored a report from Economic Opportunity Studies on incomes and energy costs.

There is a growing consensus that energy burdens will increasingly be felt by families not traditionally viewed as "poor," namely middle-income families that will need to stretch to pay sharply higher bills this winter. .......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/more-middle-income-americans-falling-fuel/story.aspx?guid=%7BDA902912%2DA17D%2D4A53%2D8BAA%2D617B5C5D96E5%7D