The households of 4.2 percent of American adults were unable to pay an energy bill (or the full amount) almost every month over the last year. So reports the U.S. Census Bureau based on seventy-five thousand survey responses it received during the two weeks ending the tenth of January.
And the households of an additional 7.4 percent of adults were unable to pay an energy bill (or the full amount) in some months over the last year. And the households of an additional 6.1 percent of adults had this kind of difficulty in one or two months over the last year.
If you add the three categories together, 17.7 percent experienced problems paying energy bills. For the sake of comparison, 64.6 percent did not have any such problems over the last year.
Why don’t the numbers combine to a hundred percent? The remaining 17.6 percent didn’t answer this question in their surveys.
Adjusting for those not answering, 21.5 percent of those answering reported energy bill-paying problems of some degree. And 78.5 percent did not.
Of greater concern, again adjusting for those not answering, 5.1 percent constantly had energy bill-paying problems. An additional 9.0 percent had them in more than two months of the past year.
Of course, these stats vary by state and metro area. For example, in the Houston, Texas metro area, again adjusting for those not answering, 7.6 percent constantly had energy bill-paying problems. An additional 11.4 percent had them in more than two months of the last year.
