Average residential electric bill fell to four dollars daily in 2015
Four bucks a day. On the nose. That's what the average American household pays for their home's electric utility service.
Last week, the Labor Department released the results of the Consumer Expenditure Survey for 2015. It's the mother lode, on what consumers spend for everything, including electric and natural gas service.
The average daily electric bill is down seven cents from 2014. That's a 1.62 percent drop in electricity's cost to consumers. It would be a larger drop if you took inflation into account.
Expect the average electric bill to fall another ten cents or more in 2016. All the way to three dollars eighty cents per day?
Indeed, the average bill has risen a total of just 3.33 percent over the last five years through 2015. Per annum that's a 0.67 percent increase, well less than the rate of inflation.
At four bucks a day, electric service averages 2.61 percent of Americans' consumer expenditures. It's a considerably lower percentage if expenditures made on behalf of consumers are counted, by government, insurance, etc.
Electric service averaged 2.77 percent of consumer expenditures in 2014. So there was a decrease from 2.77 percent in 2014 to 2.61 percent in 2015.
You can't look at these average bills without noticing the dramatic regional differences. While the national average was four bucks a day, for households in the West the average was only $3.31 daily.
For households in the Midwest, electric bills were only $3.51 daily. For households in the Northeast, electric bills were only $3.68 daily.
What households in the South pay, brings up the national average to four bucks a day. Air-conditioners naturally run harder in the South.
Number-crunching courtesy of Public Utilities Fortnightly.
Steve Mitnick, Editor-in-Chief, Public Utilities Fortnightly
E-mail me: mitnick@fortnightly.com
