This just in, last week, courtesy of the semi-annual Consumer Expenditure Survey of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The electric bills paid by American households, in total, in 2017, averaged $1,420. Comes to $118.33 per month.
It’s the lowest average since 2013. And it’s below the level in 2011, six years ago.
The annual total in 2017 was $24 less than 2016, $40 less than 2015, and $64 less than 2014.
Yet, while the annual total in 2017 was three bucks less than 2011, average household expenditures overall, for all goods and services, shot up by $10,355. In other words, electric bills shrunk in proportion to expenditures overall.
Let’s go way back, to the first year of the Consumer Expenditure Survey, 1984. That year, the electric bills paid by American households, in total, averaged just $629. However, household expenditures overall, for all goods and services, averaged just $21,975.
So, from 1984 to 2017, electric bills increased 125.8 percent. But household expenditures overall increased 173.3 percent, a much faster rate.
Even in the long term, electric bills have shrunk in proportion to expenditures overall.
Work at a utility? Or a large concern of another type? We’re phasing out individual subscriptions to Public Utilities Fortnightly at any organization with over a hundred employees. But, no worries. We’ll make it easy and economical for your company to sign up for a membership to cover any employee.
Steve Mitnick, Editor-in-Chief, Public Utilities Fortnightly, and President, Lines Up, Inc.
E-mail me: mitnick@fortnightly.com