An interactive tool to help consumers, reporters, and policymakers explore the effect of excessive utility profit rates on electricity bills.
Explore the utility bill calculator
Across the nation, families and individuals are struggling to keep up with skyrocketing electric bills. Electricity prices have soared in recent years, dramatically outpacing both inflation and wage growth. Low‑income households, especially Black and Native American families, bear a disproportionate share of high energy costs. More and more households are falling behind on their utility bills, or having life-sustaining power cut off due to nonpayment.
Excessive utility profit rates are a key driver of these problems. In exchange for a legal monopoly over the public good of electricity, for-profit utilities agree to have their prices set by state regulators. Regulators also set the rates of profit – known as return on equity – utilities can pay their investors. These approved profit rates are too high, and are costing U.S. customers an extra $300 per household, or $50 billion per year.
ILSR’s interactive Utility Bill Calculator shows users how much more they pay for electricity per year, due to excessive utility profits.
State regulators are setting utility profit rates too high, allowing utilities to overcharge customers by billions in order to overpay their investors.
In some states, 30 cents of every dollar a customer pays to their electric utility goes to the utility’s shareholders’ profits. How widespread is this...
ILSR’s blockbuster report exposes investor-owned utilities as an abusive monopoly harming our communities, climate, and democracy.
Learn about actions state utility regulators and legislators can take to lower electric bills for consumers.