What I Want to Write About
So Many Issues, So Little Time
What do you want to write about, to impact the sustainable resilient affordable debate?
Affordability and Energy Transformation Investment
How does the scale of investment affect customers’ affordability?
Ratemaking and Consumer Behavior
What’s a utility provider to do when talking about rate increase proposals?
January's Electric and Gas Rates
Overall CPI was up 3.1% from January 2023 for all goods and services.
PUF Affordability Seminars
PUF has developed two seminars on affordability, one for an organization’s leaders and communications professionals, the other for its and regulatory professionals.
Fun Fact of the Week
American consumers paid 20.6 times more per household in Q4 2023 than in Q4 1959, adjusting for population growth.
Electric Rates 1/40th of the CPI
Electricity is 2.522 percent of the Consumer Price Index. As a fraction, that’s about one-fortieth.
Other components of the CPI with a similar weight on this all-important measure of inflation? Full service meals and snacks, like restaurants, have a weight in the CPI of 2.324. Limited service meals and snacks, like fast food, have a weight of 2.272.
Apparel has a weight in the CPI of 2.464. Used cars and trucks have a weight of 2.544. Hospitals and related services have a weight of 2.308. Motor vehicle insurance has a weight of 2.874.
PUF's Electric Bill Affordability Index
The Electric Bill Affordability Index tracks how much consumers can afford other stuff.
Where's Affordability
Electricity has generally been a shrinking part of consumer expenditures since the great recession, while consumer expenditures have grown.