Electricity was cut off 13.4 million times to U.S. homes in 2024. Gas was shut-off to 1.7 million.
That’s a national disaster. Since several folks usually live in a household, this means at least 40 million to 50 million people lost their lights and heat that year. Their crime was being poor.
Having your electricity cut off means your milk, meat and other refrigerated food will spoil. So will life-saving medications like insulin, which many people with diabetes need.
Shut-offs can kill. A May 15, 1982, fire in Baltimore killed 10 people, including seven children. The fire was caused by a candle that the family was forced to use after their electricity was shut off.
The family owed just $808 on their electric bill to Baltimore Gas and Electric, now part of the Exelon Corporation with over $20 billion in revenue. That works out to $80.80 for every person killed.
A dozen years later, two adults and seven children died in another Baltimore fire on Feb. 26, 1994. Once again, an overturned candle started the inferno after their electricity was shut off.
Human life is cheap to the wealthy and powerful. For the utility executives in Baltimore, each child killed in that May 15, 1982, fire was worth just $80.80.
Skyrocketing utility bills guarantee even more shut-offs. Since 2019, residential electrical bills in the United States have risen 36%. It’s even worse in New York State, where they’ve jumped by 58%.
Meanwhile, the 10 highest paid utility CEOs raked in more than $220 million last year.
Freezing and sweltering to death
Losing gas heat is also deadly. In 2022, 82-year-old Virginia Vigrass died after her gas was cut off in the Cleveland suburb of Lakewood. The freezing death of a Milwaukee, Wisconsin, senior in 1977 led to state moratoriums on heating shut-offs during the winter.
The struggle against utility shut-offs forced Congress to establish the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program in 1981. LIHEAP saves lives.
Its current budget is $4.1 billion, less than three days of what Big Oil’s war against Iran costs. Trump wants to eliminate LIHEAP despite one in six households being behind in their utility bills.
Trump’s attacks on poor and working people aren’t confined to the United States. He’s cut much of Cuba’s electricity by largely stopping the country’s oil imports.
That’s a war crime. Many Cuban hospitals have had to limit surgeries to daylight hours.
Deaths from heat stroke are even more common than deaths from cold weather. Over 700 people died during a July 1995 heat wave in Chicago.
Last year an estimated 350 people died from high heat in New York City. Why should these preventable deaths be occurring in a city with 123 billionaires?
In a wealthy country like the United States, air conditioning should be a right. Farm workers and all those working in construction and warehouses must be protected. Workplaces need to be shut down, with no cut in pay, if adequate relief isn’t available.
Take over the utilities!
Working-class families are being squeezed by their utility bills alongside rising rents, increased medical costs and soaring prices at the gas pump. Electricity and gas heat are necessities that should be considered human rights.
The profit-mad utilities have neglected investments in the electrical grid. This has led to complete shutdowns like in the Northeastern United States in 2003 or Texas in 2021.
The biggest U.S. utility — Pacific Gas and Electric — cut back on tree trimming, which led to deadly wildfires in California. Lawsuits forced PG&E into bankruptcy.
In New York, Con Edison locking out 12,000 utility workers during three weeks in 2012 could have led to a catastrophe. In 2014, a gas explosion in Manhattan’s El Barrio (East Harlem), killed eight people.
The tragedy was caused by Con Ed’s ancient, century-old, cast-iron pipes, which should have been replaced long ago. Corporation executives declined to do so because stock dividends might be cut.
Profits are more important to them than people. Greedy capitalists can’t be trusted to operate these absolutely necessary utilities.
The people need to take over the utilities. Utility bills alone should never be more than 10% of a working family’s income. Combined with rent, the burden on the lowest-paid workers has become impossible to survive.
The power of the people can defeat the electric and gas monopolies.
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