American households struggle with sky-high energy bills during extreme summer heat

of the pbs news hour, weeknights on pbs. John: As summer temperatures have soared across the nation, so have electric bills as air conditioners work overtime. A usa today analysis of government forecasts projected an average monthly bill this summer of $173. Every year, nearly 3 million American households have their electricity shut off because of unpaid bills. We heard from a handful of people trying to navigate all this. >> My name is Lisa Harjo. I'm from bullhead city, Arizona. And my energy bills have doubled from the previous year. >> My name is Morgan Tate. And I live in silver spring, Maryland. I've lived in this area for seven years, and I've never had a summer this hot. >> I'm David Hambrick. I am a registered nurse from Dallas. Today, the heat factor is going to be like 112 or 114, some ridiculous amount. It really affects the medical condition that I have. And so, we've got to run our air conditioner more than normal. >> In previous years I would run it at about 76. Now, I usually will run it at about 80. If it's a really hot day, I will run it at about 82. I tell my daughter, just walk outside and come back in and it'll feel good in here. >> I'm fighting through the disability program, so my wages have been cut in half. And so, trying to manage increases in utilities on less of a salary is extraordinarily difficult. >> I have taken money out of my grocery bill. I've taken money out of my restaurant bill. >> I am planning on renting out a room because that is the only way I foresee having enough money to offset these huge bills. I only pay my water bill every other month, because if I try to pay that and my electric bill, then I'm in trouble. >> We've moved, you know, to generics. [Laughter] Except for my strawberries. Smucker's strawberry preserves. That's my one. That's my one luxury. [Laughter] >> I literally have to decide whether I want to have air conditioning or have something to eat. >> One of the things that I like to do in order to stay cool and save money is go to the mall, go to the library, go to some place that I know is going to be air conditioned already. >> The first thing we do is just completely almost blackout the house. >> I have insulation in every window in my house so that I can keep it dark and try to keep any air from escaping as much as possible. >> I have found that when I'm able to mitigate some of this using ice packs, using fans instead of my central ac, that I save about $30 per month on my utility bill, and that can make a big difference. >> This is hitting us pretty hard. People, if they don't see it or until it affects them, they don't really understand. >> It's a really horrible feeling because nobody likes to not have enough money to pay their bills, you know? People just think that because we chose at some point to live in a hot state that we should just suck it up, and then that's just, you know, that's just not right. John: People struggling with both the heat and with their electric bills. Sonya Carley is a professor of energy policy and city planning at the university of Pennsylvania. Sanya, I know you research coping techniques. How typical is what we just heard? >> Unfortunately, John, it's very typical. At the energy justice lab, we find that over half of all low-income households engage in some of these so-called coping strategies, many of which we just heard about. These strategies are both financial in nature and behavioral in nature. We also know that over half of all low-income households engage in many of these at once, and it's the households that have particularly vulnerable members that reside within it, such as young children under the age of five or those who are medically compromised or elderly, that are more likely to engage in these kinds of strategies. We found that one in four households use some kind of risky temperature strategy in order to cope. Now, here, these are things such as burning trash in your home or running a space heater, which we know to be one of the leading causes of fire in the united States. Or opening your oven or flaring your gas stove, or for space heating or running your dryer, but disconnecting the dryer vent and putting somebody behind it in order to warm your body temperature. We also know that one in four households carry debt across their energy bills, and approximately one in five households engage in this kind of bill balancing that you heard about just a minute ago, where one might pay down one energy bill or one mortgage bill, for example, one month, and then pay down a different bill the next month. And approximately one in five households have to forego paying for food in order to pay their utility bills. John: What are the consequences of either not having air conditioning or cutting back on the air conditioning to save money? >> It can lead to a variety of mental and physical health consequences, and some of the consequences can be quite dire. In the severe, but not at all rare case, it can lead to death. Now, just generally, if you don't have access to energy, you don't have access to electricity, for example, there are a variety of other impacts. You wouldn't be able to use your electronic devices, such as your phone, to seek help or to find information. You can't run a refrigerator, which limits the amount of healthy and perishable food that you can keep in your house. And you can't run an electronic medical device, such as an oxygen concentrator, which you might rely on for your life. But there are also developmental outcomes, particularly for young children who reside in these homes. In some places, if a house is deemed not habitable, if you can't actually live within those conditions, then that's grounds for a child to be removed from the home and put in alternative care until the house can resume their electricity use. John: Are some people more affected by this than other people? >> Yes, there are differences. We know that increasingly, it's common for more hot states to suffer from energy insecurity more than others. We also know that there are disparities by housing conditions. So, those who have older homes, draft homes, less efficient homes tend to suffer from energy insecurity much more. And then there are social, demographic, and specific populations. So, those households that have vulnerable members that reside within, again, young children under the age of five or somebody who relies on an electronic medical device, they're much more likely to be energy insecure. We also find racial disparities, racial and ethnic disparities, where we find that households of color are significantly more likely to both suffer from energy insecurity and be disconnected. John: What programs are there to either help pay the electric bills or protect them from being disconnected? >> Sure. I like to think of these in three bins, if you will. The first is kind of preventative measures. The second is more emergency relief, and the third is more of kind of long-term maintenance. In the preventative measures, I would put things that that lower the energy bill. So, weatherization assistance is one classic example where essentially you're helping a home weatherize to seal holes in the wall or gaps, or to repair or to swap out their appliances. Residential solar is another preventative solution that essentially can lower one's energy bill over time. The emergency assistance, one could seek out local bill assistance through their local government, but also the federal government offers the low-income home energy assistance program. And then finally, there's disconnection protections. These are at the state level. States declare whether there are certain times that utilities cannot disconnect certain customers. If, for example, the weather is above or below a certain temperature or at a certain time of year. Now, I'll just point out that these policies are wildly inconsistent across the states. It's a patchwork, if you will. We know that less than half of all states actually have heat-based protection, so it's far more common for them to have cold-based protections. So, there's not only this patchwork, but it's also the case that these policies tend to favor, or at least not be sensitive to the increasing incidence of extreme heat. John: Sanya Carley of the university of Pennsylvania. Thank you very much. >> Thank you so muc