Today we again mine the mother lode, the Labor Department’s Consumer Expenditure Survey. In extraordinary detail, it reports what households spent last year for everything. 

Let’s look at the electric bills of low-income households in the Northeast, Midwest and West. Low-income includes, for this look, households with income before taxes averaging under $30,000 per year in 2014 – 2015. 

We’ll leave aside electric bills in the South. Electric bills there are generally higher where air-conditioners are run harder. 

Today we continue to mine the mother lode, the Labor Department’s Consumer Expenditure Survey. In extraordinary detail, it reports what households spent last year for everything. 

Let’s look at electric bills by income. There are fascinating implications for utility regulation and policy. 

As we wrote last week, a household’s electric service averaged $4.00 daily. Or 2.6 percent of all consumer expenditures. 

Today we continue to mine the mother lode, the 2015 Consumer Expenditure Survey released last week by the Labor Department, on what consumers spend on everything, including electric and natural gas service.

As we wrote yesterday, at four bucks a day, electric service averages 2.61 percent of Americans’ consumer expenditures. It’s a considerably lower percentage if expenditures made on behalf of consumers are counted, by government, insurance, etc.

The regional differences are dramatic.

Four bucks a day. On the nose. That's what the average American household pays for their home's electric utility service.

Last week, the Labor Department released the results of the Consumer Expenditure Survey for 2015. It's the mother lode, on what consumers spend for everything, including electric and natural gas service.

The average daily electric bill is down seven cents from 2014. That's a 1.62 percent drop in electricity's cost to consumers. It would be a larger drop if you took inflation into account.

What's so special about this Sunday, the Fourth of September? It's both Lewis Latimer's birthday and the hundred and thirty-fourth anniversary of Pearl Street Station.

Here's an excerpt from the September issue of Public Utilities Fortnightly heading your way:

On September 4, 1848, Lewis Latimer was born in Chelsea, Massachusetts. His parents were slaves in Virginia who escaped to Boston. The slave owner came to Boston to reclaim them, in one of the most important cases of the abolitionist movement. The slave owner was eventually paid for their freedom.

Of all the nation’s electricity, 35.8 percent was generated without emitting carbon dioxide, this year through June. The remaining 64.2 percent was generated with emissions. 

57.1 percent of the zero-carbon power came from nuclear plants. 16.6 percent came from wind farms. 3.5 percent came from solar. 

Want to know why electricity consumption isn't growing that much? Look no further than the Census Department stats on new single-family houses.

In 2015, 648 thousand new single-family houses were completed nationally. That's up forty-five percent from 2011. But down sixty-one percent from 2006.

Why is the housing recovery from 2011 and lingering housing recession from 2006 so important for us in utility regulation and policy?