Duke University researchers have released a working paper that connects the threat of utility service shutoffs with an increased risk of COVID-19 infection and death.
The Jan. 25 paper, which was published through the National Bureau of Economic Research and also considered the impact of pauses on housing eviction, found that "moratoria on utility disconnections reduce COVID-19 infections by 4.4% and mortality rates by 7.4%."
With a nationwide prohibition on utility service disconnections from early March 2020 through the end of November 2020, there may have been 8.7% fewer COVID-19 infections and 14.8% fewer related deaths, according to the researchers.
"From the beginning of the pandemic through the end of November, housing precarity policies that include eviction and utility disconnection moratoria have been effective at decreasing both COVID-19 infections and deaths," the researchers concluded.
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States, cities, counties and utilities have pursued a patchwork of utility disconnection policies since the COVID-19 pandemic began, although some states left the decision up to the utilities themselves and others that halted service shutoffs have already allowed those protections to lapse. As talk has turned to unpaid bills and accruing arrearages, some consumer advocates have suggested bill forgiveness should be on the table.
Hundreds of consumer advocacy groups have called for a utility disconnection moratorium to be established at the federal level, citing the need to slow the spread of COVID-19 transmission and soothe the economic hardship that many Americans are facing because of the pandemic.
Adam Benshoff, executive director of regulatory affairs at the Edison Electric Institute, which represents investor-owned utilities, earlier in January said in response to calls for a nationwide moratorium on utility service shutoffs that a federal "one-size-fits-all" approach would be detrimental to the ability of state regulators and utilities to craft acceptable payment plans with customers.
The Duke University researchers also noted the heightened levels of energy insecurity among households of color, citing the "enduring patterns created by a host of institutional rules, regulations and practices that included discriminatory planning and lending practices, known as 'redlining,' and other forms of disinvestment in historically Black neighborhoods."
"The result of this disinvestment has been the creation of disproportionate structural energy inefficiencies in the housing stock available to people of color and low-income people, whether they are renters or homeowners," the working paper continued.
These new findings add to a growing body of research reports related to the inequities that people of color face when it comes to utility bills.
In June 2020, a working paper released by an energy policy institute at the University of California, Berkeley, found that Black households in the U.S., particularly those considered to be low-income, pay "significantly" more to satisfy their energy needs than white households. And in September of that year, the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy found that in cities across the U.S., certain minority households pay a larger share of income on their home energy bills than similarly situated non-Hispanic white families.
The Duke University working paper further explained that energy poverty in general is an "extremely prevalent" public health threat in the U.S. associated with respiratory illnesses and mental health challenges and that "service disconnections may strain chronic health conditions and force individuals to seek additional medical care ... which compounds their financial burdens placing them at even greater risk of eviction."
