U.S Household Heating Bills Expected to Jump as Much as 54% This Winter
Americans under strain amid coming 'dark winter'
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Thanks to Joe Biden, Americans will need to put up more money to keep their homes heated this winter.
The inflation rate is the highest its been in 13 years, up top 5.4% year over year in September.
Prices soared 0.4% in Sept, up from 0.3% in August.
The key drivers behind inflation are gas, food, and goods.
Gas is up 25% under Biden.
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Now the US government is expecting household heating bills to jump massively and expects this winter will be colder than the last.
The FT reports:
Household spending on natural gas, the main heating fuel for nearly half of US homes, will average $746 this winter, up 30 percent compared with last year, the US Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday. The agency said that spending on electricity — used to heat about 41 percent of homes — could rise by 6 percent.
“The higher global and domestic energy prices that are resulting from economies beginning to grow again are going to translate into larger household bills for energy this winter,” said Stephen Nalley, the EIA’s acting administrator.
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The US has been relatively insulated from deepening energy shortfalls in Europe and Asia, where a scramble for supplies has pushed natural gas and electricity prices to record highs.
But signs that economy-wide inflation is spreading to energy household bills will spark further alarm in the White House, which has called on global oil and gas producers such as Saudi Arabia to increase supply to push down fuel prices.
Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said on Wednesday that the Biden administration was “very well aware . . . that the American people are of course impacted by rising prices of gas”.
President Joe Biden had asked his economic team to “continue to discuss what the options are that we can take to address these shortages,” she added.
Jennifer Granholm, US secretary of energy, told the Financial Times last week that a release of federally held strategic petroleum stocks was a “tool that’s under consideration” as the administration tries to keep a lid on fuel prices.
Shale energy companies, responsible for the majority of gas and oil production in the country, have held back activity despite a doubling of crude prices in the past year and a sharp rise in demand for oil and gas as the economy reopens.
