When the Lights Stay On but the Math Stops Working

Across the country, families are opening their utility bills and seeing numbers that don’t match their budgets—or their reality. Electricity prices have been rising faster than general inflation. From January to July 2025 alone, the average price per kilowatt-hour climbed roughly 9.5% (about 15.95¢ → 17.47¢). By mid-summer, the average monthly electric bill was up 5.7% compared with a year earlier (about $192.52 → $203.53). For many households, those extra dollars arrive on top of everything else going up—rents, groceries, school costs, the price of getting to work.

The summer of 2025 brought something we hadn’t seen in at least a dozen years: the highest average summer electricity bill—around $776. That’s not because families suddenly started wasting power. A lot of the pressure comes from outside the kitchen or living room: big projects to rebuild and expand the grid; higher costs for natural gas, which fuels many power plants; and a rapid build-out of energy-hungry commercial uses—including large data centers—that push overall demand higher.

Families, meanwhile, use energy the way life demands. When it’s too hot, the air conditioner runs. When it’s too cold, the heat stays on. Dinner happens when kids are home, not at 2 a.m. for an off-peak discount. That’s why so many people bristle at advice to “shift usage.” For most households, there isn’t much to shift. The result is a growing pile of unpaid bills and cutoffs that tell a harsher truth than any trend line.

By the end of June 2025, household energy debt had swollen by about 31% in a year and a half—roughly $17.5 billion → $23.0 billion. About 21 million households—one in six—are behind. Shutoffs are moving the wrong way too: 3.0 million in 2023, 3.5 million in 2024, and on pace for about 4.0 million in 2025. Behind every number is a family making trade-offs: pay the bill or pay the rent; keep the lights on or keep food in the fridge.

The national picture hides big differences by state, but the direction is familiar. Ten states plus D.C. saw average electric bills jump more than 15%, and in five states the increase topped 20%—adding $25 to $41 a month to the typical bill. Those may sound like small amounts until you’re the person making them fit into a budget already stretched by a rent hike and higher milk and eggs. Even a $30 bump can be the difference between catching up and falling further behind.

It’s tempting to treat all customers as if they have the same choices. Businesses that plan their operations months or years ahead can smooth their electricity use over long periods, sign special contracts, and invest in equipment that helps them avoid the most expensive hours. Households don’t have those levers. Families use more when the weather leaves them no choice, and when school and work set the schedule. Telling a parent to cook at midnight to save a few cents misses the point—and misses real life.

This mismatch helps explain why so many people feel that residential customers are carrying costs they didn’t create. Large commercial users, including fast-growing sectors that rely on massive computing power, can drive up overall demand and the need for grid upgrades. Those costs don’t disappear; they show up somewhere. Too often, they land in the mailbox of someone who can’t pick their child up from practice and also run the dishwasher “off-peak.”

Winter won’t make things easier. National groups tracking affordability expect the average cost of home energy to rise about 7.6% this winter, with electricity up around 10% (roughly $1,093 → $1,205). And even outside of electricity, households face pressure: natural gas bills are projected to rise as well (about $639 → $693) because of wholesale prices and strong export demand. That’s more strain for people already behind.

All of this lands in mailboxes one envelope at a time. A bill goes from $180 to $205. A past-due notice appears. A payment plan is offered—but with rules that are hard to keep when income swings, hours get cut, or a car repair wipes out the month’s cushion. The words on the page are sterile; the experience is not. You juggle rent, food, and utilities. You borrow from a friend. You skip a co-pay. You cross your fingers for better weather next month.

The uncomfortable truth is that the energy transition—which many of us support—comes with costs, and we’re in a moment when those costs and other pressures are arriving together. The question is who carries what. Businesses that operate at a large scale and can plan over long horizons will keep doing what they’ve always done: negotiate, hedge, and invest. Families will keep doing what they have always done: cook dinner when everyone’s home, turn on heat and cooling when they must, and try to make the numbers add up.

Right now, the numbers aren’t adding up for too many people. Prices per kilowatt-hour are higher. Monthly bills are higher. Debt is higher. Shutoffs are higher. And the bills don’t care that rent went up in the same week as groceries. None of this is about blame; it’s about balance. When the causes of higher costs are driven by long-term commercial growth and system-wide investments, it feels unfair to ask households—who can’t move their lives to off-peak hours—to carry the heaviest load.

The story is national, but it’s also personal. It’s the anxious pause before opening a bill. It’s the way a child notices the thermostat drama. It’s a neighbor knocking because their lights are out. We can debate policy designs elsewhere. Here, the facts speak plainly: more families are falling behind even as they use energy in the only way life allows. If we’re honest about that, then at least we can be honest about what fairness should look like—and who should pay for what.