Neighborhoods With More People of Color Pay Higher Energy Bills

It is well-established that the lower a family’s income, the more that family will pay for lighting and heating the house, running appliances, and keeping the wi-fi on. Such outcomes would suggest that this is a class problem or a function of rational markets. But according to a new study, all low-income households are not equally yoked: Residents of poorer, predominately white neighborhoods are less energy-cost burdened than people in predominately minority neighborhoods of similar economic status. Race matters.

Residents of minority neighborhoods who make less than 50 percent of area median income (AMI) are 27 percent more energy-cost burdened than residents from the same wage bracket who live in white neighborhoods. This is one of the findings from the study, “Energy Cost Burdens for Low-Income and Minority Households,” recently published in the Journal of the American Planning Association and conducted by New York University urban planning researchers Constantine E. Kontokosta and Bartosz Bonczak, and University of Pennsylvania urban planning professor Vincent J. Reina.