The looming Electric Bill Crisis

I was reading an Op Ed by Senator Ed Markey this weekend, and he was lobbying for additional funding to help people pay their electric and heating bills.

THESE ARE SOME INTERESTING NUMBERS

• 
  Residential customers in MA owe an estimated $630 MILLION in unpaid electric and gas bills
• There are 583,000 residential electric and gas customers behind on their bills

There are 2.6million households in MA so that is 22.4% of all households in MA

Let's think about this for a moment.  If there are all these people behind on bills, how many are behind on rent.  We can jump to a conclusion here that most of these folk are renters

Typically people pay their bills in this order

• Cell Phone
• Auto insurance
• Car payment
• Electric
• gas
• Rent

Why in this order?  First they will turn off your cell phone, and cancel your auto insurance, then they will repo your car.

The electric and Gas are regulated so they have limited ability to turn off service in the winter.

The eviction process takes a long time, so being behind on your rent isn't as urgent a matter.

WATCH OUT AS TENANTS ARE GOING TO START HAVING TROUBLE PAYING THEIR RENTS