The Average American Household’s Energy Bill is 47% Higher in 2022 than 2021
Jose Nino
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America, and the broader West for that matter, is experiencing a nasty cost of living crisis that’s expressing itself all across the economy. One can see it all over from food all the way to energy prices.
On the electricity front, we see this with soaring electric rates. According to a post by Mike Shedlock, electric rates increased by north of 70% at the outset of the summer in states such as Texas.
One thing that Shedlock noted is that natural gas prices have increased more than crude oil, which everyday consumers across Collective West will see in their increased electric bills.
In the case of Texas, the average residential rate was 18.48 cents per kilowatt hour. That’s an 10.5 cent increase from June 2021, per data from the Association of Electric Companies of Texas.
Shedlock put the numbers into context:
For a family using 1,000 kWh of electricity a month, that translates into a monthly increase of roughly $80. Over a full year, that would sap nearly $1,000 extra from the family budget.
“We’ve never seen prices this high,” observed Tim Morstad, the associate state director for AARP Texas. “There’s going to be some real sticker shock here.”
Shedlock put forward his own chart that measured energy prices in prominent metro areas such as Dallas, Miami, New York, and San Francisco.
According to Shedlock’s data, the average household in America is paying 47.3% higher electricity prices than a year ago.
In sum, higher electricity prices are just one facet of the problems many people in the West will be facing over the course of the rest of the year. The supply shocks caused by governments’ responses to the Wuhan virus pandemic and the economic fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has thrown the entire global economic system out of whack.
For the first time in decades, denizens of the Collective West will be facing reduced living standards. BLP previously reported that even the most stable of Western nations such as Switzerland could potentially face domestic unrest due to energy problems that are expected to rear their ugly heads this upcoming winter.
What we’re facing right now is not a random product of the elements but rather the direct result of failed public policies that don’t allow for complete energy freedom. On top of that, the West has a ruling class with an insatiable lust for war which puts it at risk of facing geoeconomic shocks that will disproportionately hurt the working class.
An America First solution to this dilemma would be one of deregulating the energy sector and bringing back foreign policy restraint.
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