{"id":854918,"date":"2026-06-09T11:08:30","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T11:08:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/854918\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T11:08:30","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T11:08:30","slug":"houstonians-report-difficulties-paying-energy-bills-uh-hobby-school-survey-finds-houston-public-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/854918\/","title":{"rendered":"Houstonians report difficulties paying energy bills, UH Hobby School survey finds \u2013 Houston Public Media"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\"Much<\/a><\/p>\n

Gabriel C. P\u00e9rez | KUT News<\/p>\n

The University of Houston\u2019s Hobby School of Public Affairs found that one in eight of survey respondents spent more than 10% of their annual income on energy bills.<\/p>\n

A new survey<\/a> by the University of Houston’s Hobby School of Public Affairs found that nearly one in eight respondents face a high financial burden from energy costs.<\/p>\n

That means those households spend more than 10% of their annual income on electricity and natural gas.<\/p>\n

Texas electricity prices rose about 30%<\/a> from 2021 to 2025, according to the Texas Energy Poverty Research Institute.<\/p>\n

Sign up for the Hello, Houston!<\/a> daily newsletter to get local reports like this delivered directly to your inbox.<\/p>\n

Most survey respondents spent less than $200 per month on electricity and natural gas. However, 46% of surveyed residents also said they struggled to pay an energy bill at least once within the last year.<\/p>\n

“That\u2019s not a fringe problem,” said Gail Buttorff, an associate director for the Hobby School’s Center for Public Policy who worked on the survey. “Almost one in two households had trouble paying energy bills in the last year.”<\/p>\n

Buttorff said low-income households have been disproportionately impacted by these rising prices. She said that’s in part because many low-income residents do not live in energy-efficient homes, with features like double-pane windows, a smart thermostat or energy-saving appliances.<\/p>\n

“One of the clear policy implications from that is to have targeted investments or targeted incentives to improve that housing,” she said.<\/p>\n

Many survey respondents also expressed concerns about grid reliability. The city has seen several major blackouts during extreme weather over the past five years, and demand on the grid is growing, with the expansion of data centers in the state.<\/p>\n

“I think there is also bipartisan interest in trying to support or to balance the growth of data centers with electricity reliability because [of] the expansion in the grid and having access to electricity, let alone the cost,” Buttorff said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gabriel C. P\u00e9rez | KUT News The University of Houston\u2019s Hobby School of Public Affairs found that one…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":854919,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5130],"tags":[8161,9972,30735,349068,4345,425,50,358,349069,3187],"class_list":["post-854918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-affordability","tag-energy-environment","tag-energy-bills","tag-hobby-school","tag-houston","tag-local","tag-news","tag-texas","tag-texas-energy-poverty-research-institute","tag-tx"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116719840496828632","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/854918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=854918"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/854918\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/854919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=854918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=854918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=854918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}