Electric utilities shut off power to U.S. homes roughly 13.4 million times in 2024, and natural gas utilities disconnected service about 1.7 million times, according to a winter heating outlook the National Energy Assistance Directors Association published Sept. 14. The report ties the disconnections to a heating season in which the average household is projected to pay $1,030, up 8.7% from a year earlier. NEADA is using the numbers to press Congress for more emergency heating aid before temperatures drop.
Two pieces of the relief kit that fit here: The Senior Property Tax & Home-Cost Relief Kit lays out heating, cooling and home-repair assistance alongside an application log and renewal calendar for tracking each one. Sort the heating and repair help by deadline →
Shutoffs Reached Into Millions Of Households
The NEADA winter heating report counts 13.4 million electric disconnections and 1.7 million gas disconnections across 2024, a tally of shutoff events rather than a count of distinct households, since some homes lost service more than once during the year. NEADA, a nonprofit representing the state officials who run federal heating-aid programs, built the figures from state-reported utility data gathered ahead of the coming winter season. The group’s report frames the disconnection totals alongside a second finding: households in the lowest income bracket now spend 9.86% of their income on electricity and natural gas combined, up from 9.38% the year before, leaving less room to absorb a missed payment before service is cut. For a retiree on a fixed Social Security check, that shrinking margin is the practical meaning behind the disconnection count: a single missed bill can end in a shutoff notice faster than it once did.
Heating Bills Are Outrunning Last Winter’s Prices
The same NEADA analysis projects the average household winter heating bill at $1,030 this season, an increase of 8.7%, or about $82, over last winter. The increase is uneven by fuel: natural gas costs are projected to rise 5.8%, electricity 9.0%, propane 8.7% and heating oil 31.3%, the steepest jump of the four. For a household already living on a fixed retirement income, the gap between last year’s budget and this year’s bill is precisely the margin that turns a late payment into a disconnection notice. Because Social Security’s annual cost-of-living adjustment is set months before winter heating bills arrive, retirees on a fixed check are effectively budgeting against last year’s cost of living rather than this one, widening the gap the NEADA numbers describe. The report does not break its cost projection out by state, so the size of that gap for any single household still depends on the mix of fuels used locally and the utility rates a state regulator has approved for the season ahead.
One In Six Households Is Already Behind
NEADA’s report puts residential utility debt nationwide at approximately $23 billion, with about one in six U.S. households behind on a utility bill heading into winter. “This is a warning that too many families are entering winter with no room left in their budgets,” said Mark Wolfe, NEADA’s executive director, in the report. The debt figure describes unpaid balances still on the books at utilities, not accounts already sent to collections, meaning the number of households at risk of a shutoff this winter could run higher than the disconnection count alone suggests. Utilities in most states must offer a payment plan or hardship review before cutting service, but those protections generally have to be requested; a household that does not call before a bill goes unpaid can still lose service on schedule. NEADA’s report does not break the debt or disconnection totals down by state, so it offers no way to tell whether the households behind on bills are concentrated in colder states or spread evenly across the country.
NEADA Is Asking Congress For More Heating Aid
NEADA is asking Congress to raise Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program funding well above where the program has been funded in recent appropriations cycles, citing the disconnection and debt figures as evidence that current funding is falling short. “Congress cannot wait for the first cold snap. LIHEAP funding should be increased now. Energy is not a luxury,” Wolfe said. LIHEAP, run through the Administration for Children and Families, sends block grants to states that in turn cover a share of a qualifying household’s heating and cooling bills and can fund emergency payments to stop or reverse a disconnection; the program’s own description of eligibility and benefits shows how much of that decision is left to each state to set within federal guidelines, which is also why the aid a household can draw on varies sharply by ZIP code.
Government Data Shows The Scale Behind The Shutoffs
Federal energy data underscores why disconnection counts of this size are possible. The U.S. Energy Information Administration’s residential electricity data shows tens of millions of households billed for power every month, while its separate explainer on residential natural gas use notes that roughly half of U.S. homes heat primarily with gas, concentrating much of the disconnection risk in the coldest months. Neither agency publishes a national disconnection count of its own, which is part of why NEADA’s state-by-state survey, drawn from utility regulators and heating-assistance offices, has become the figure lawmakers cite when the LIHEAP program’s own fact sheet comes up in the appropriations debate each fall. Both figures point the same direction: a large, established federal aid program that reaches only a fraction of the households the disconnection numbers describe.
Tracking Heating And Cooling Help Through Winter
NEADA’s disconnection count and its call for a sharp increase in federal heating-aid funding both point to the same unfinished job for an older household on a fixed income: sorting through which heating, cooling or repair assistance program actually applies before a bill goes unpaid, and keeping track of each program’s own filing window as it opens. That job is state-specific and easy to lose track of across a single winter, let alone from one year to the next.
The Senior Property Tax & Home-Cost Relief Kit lays out the heating, cooling and home-repair assistance most older households can apply for alongside a renewal calendar built to track each program’s deadline.
Sort the heating and cooling assistance by deadline →
This article was produced with AI assistance and checked against the primary sources linked above.
David M. Keller is a finance writer based in Columbus, Ohio, covering personal finance and consumer-focused economic topics. He earned his degree in journalism from Ohio University and began his career reporting on local business and economic trends for a regional media outlet. Since then, he has contributed to a variety of online publications, focusing on clear, practical coverage of topics such as cost of living, debt, and everyday financial decision-making.
