In 2020, 27% of U.S. households had difficulty meeting their energy needs

In 2020, 34 million U.S. households (27% of all U.S. households) reported difficulty paying energy bills or reported that they had kept their home at an unsafe temperature because of energy cost concerns. This estimate is less than what was reported in the previous iteration of the Residential Energy Consumption Survey (RECS), when 37 million households, or 31%, reported similar issues in 2015. The RECS measures household energy insecurity by asking a series of questions about challenges paying energy bills or conditions of unsafe temperatures attributable to energy cost concerns.