The looming Electric Bill Crisis
I was reading an Op Ed by Senator Ed Markey this weekend, and he was lobbying for additional funding to help people pay their electric and heating bills.
Interesting Numbers
Residential customers in MA owe an estimated $630 MILLION in unpaid electric and gas bills.
There are 583,000 residential electric and gas customers behind on their bills.
There are 2.6 million households in MA, so that is 22.4% of all households in MA.
Let's think about this for a moment. If there are all these people behind on bills, how many are behind on rent? We can jump to a conclusion here that most of these folk are renters.
Typical Bill Payment Order
Typically, people pay their bills in this order:
Cell Phone
Auto insurance
Car payment
Electric
Gas
Rent
Why in this order? First, they will turn off your cell phone, and cancel your auto insurance, then they will repo your car.
The electric and gas are regulated, so they have limited ability to turn off service in the winter. The eviction process takes a long time, so being behind on your rent isn't as urgent a matter.
Watch Out for Tenants
Watch out as tenants are going to start having trouble paying their rents.
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