USA : Millions Can't Pay Their Electricity/Gas Bills

[suchandra]

This is getting more and more kali-yuga?

 

The New York Times:

 

Millions of Americans are behind on electric and gas bills

By ERIK ECKHOLM

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/25/us/25heating.html?_r=3&ex=1366862400&en=c5406b9b1c6725c3&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

 

Published: April 25, 2008

<!--NYT_INLINE_IMAGE_POSITION1 --> <nyt_text> </nyt_text>After struggling with soaring heating costs through the winter, millions of Americans are behind on electric and gas bills, and a record number of families could face energy shut-offs over the next two months, according to state energy officials and utilities around the country.

 

The escalating costs of heating oil, propane and kerosene, most commonly used in the Northeast, have posed the greatest burdens, officials say, but natural gas and electricity prices have also climbed at a time when low-end incomes are stagnant and prices have also jumped for food and gasoline.

In New Hampshire, applicants for fuel subsidies under the federal Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program received an average of $600 in a one-time grant and up to $975 for the extremely poor who rely on heating oil or propane, the costliest fuels. But those grants, which in recent years have covered 60 percent of heating costs, covered only about 35 percent of those costs this winter, said Celeste Lovett, director of the state’s energy aid program. The state will have given aid to about 34,500 people by the end of April, Ms. Lovett said, a 5 percent increase over last year and the highest number ever.

The most immediate challenge is to help the high number of consumers who are far behind in electric and gas payments, said Mark Wolfe, director of the National Energy Assistance Directors’ Association, which represents state aid officials in Washington.

“Based on discussions with major utility companies around the country, we will see record numbers of families facing shut-offs,” Mr. Wolfe said.

Rhode Island officials, for example, expect shut-offs in 2008 to surpass the record of 30,000 set in 2007.

In Pennsylvania, applications for “crisis grants” for those whose oil tanks are empty or who face an imminent utilities cutoff totaled about 133,000 in each of the last two years but have already reached 166,000 this year, said Linda Blanchette, deputy secretary of income maintenance.

And in New York, the number of households that received aid increased by 5 percent in the last year, to 895,000.

Under the federal aid program, at least 5.8 million households will have received grants to help with heating bills in this fiscal year, ending Sept. 30, which is an increase

 

 

of 3.7 percent from last year, according to figures to be issued Friday by the Energy Assistance Directors’ Association.

This is the highest number in 16 years, Mr. Wolfe said. And the numbers would have been higher if some states had not been forced to reduce the number of aid recipients by increasing grants or tightening eligibility requirements — in effect choosing to provide more aid to fewer people.

Christopher Powden, a jewelry repairer in Goffstown, N.H., with a family of five, managed to pay his electric bills but fell behind on heating oil. “It was a long winter and the cost of oil was exorbitant, and when you add in the cost of electricity it’s impossible to keep up,” Mr. Powden said. Refilling his oil tank this winter cost nearly $3,000, he said, but his grant from the aid program was only $365 and he owes the oil company $535, plus interest.

Mr. Powden needs the tank refilled this spring because the same furnace provides hot water. But the company will not make another delivery until he pays off the arrears.

The federal assistance program, known as Liheap, was started in 1980, to help families cope with sharply rising oil prices and energy deregulation, and it has become a routine part of the safety net. Unlike food stamps, which the government must automatically provide to eligible applicants, the program relies on annual Congressional appropriations that have not risen as much as the cost of energy.

Many states are calling on Congress to quickly add a $1 billion supplement to the federal aid program, which has provided $2.6 billion to low-income families in the current fiscal year.

Without extra aid, people who still owe large sums to oil vendors will not be able to get deliveries next fall, Ms. Lovett said, and many who did not pay electric and gas bills during New Hampshire’s winter moratorium on shut-offs may soon lose those services.

 

 

 

full article: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/25/us/25heating.html?_r=3&ex=1366862400&en=c5406b9b1c6725c3&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

[indulekhadasi]

Sad state of affairs.

Just a century ago people were not charged for basic needs like food and water. And now the cost of those things are so much. We are getting an insight into how Kali yuga is progressing.

[rand0M aXiS]

This is destined to be a grim Memorial Day weekend in the region, what with the price of a gallon of gasoline climbing to $4 a gallon and food costs surging beyond the financial means of consumers.

 

In response to the assault on our wallets, many of us may be forced to scale back our barbecue menu to beans, bread and water.

 

{snip}

 

And there is a generation of voting-age Americans who have no idea what austere economic times truly are; have no idea what even modest times are. You motor around the city or suburbs and see two or three automobiles parked in a driveway. You walk into the home of a neighbor, and it is not unusual to see three or four flat-screen televisions.

 

Not too many decades ago, in the so-called turbulent '60s, the dream of the average American family was to leave the tiny apartment in the city and move to that wonderful home in the suburbs. That wonderful home would be termed modest by today"s standards, given it often was a three-bedroom, two-bath rambler.

 

{snip}

 

 

 

It is amusing to read the stories that inevitably portray the economy as being dire, if not in a recession, though we hardly are in a recession. And, of course, that negativity is eventually picked up by the masses, especially those too young to recall the Jimmy Carter-inspired gas lines of the '70s.

 

 

 

{snip}

 

 

 

Of course, it is a presidential election year, and it behooves candidates to pitch themselves as saviors to all that is bad. And certain voices in the media go along with it because of their political bias and interest in seeing their candidate reach the White House.

 

But the media spiel is intellectually dishonest, at odds with the recent economic history of our nation.

 

Why, it is so tough out there that millions from around the planet want to come to our nation each year, legally or otherwise.

 

 

 

Complete article at Washingtontimes.com