Weatherization reduces needs for energy bill assistance

Millions of U.S. households struggle to pay their energy bills, increasing their health and wellbeing risks. Every year, governments and utilities spend billions of dollars on services to support energy-insecure households, but there has been little empirical assessment of how and why households use bill assistance—the most common response—and the degree to which weatherization reduces need for it. Here, we conduct a discrete survival analysis and a staggered difference-in-differences analysis on eight years of longitudinal, household-level participation data for the federal Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program and an analogous utility-run program in Washington state (n = 252,313 households). We find that bill assistance can be a temporary or long-term support, revealing different forms of utility hardship. Surprisingly, weatherization does not reduce participation in bill assistance over time. However, it does, on average, reduce household energy consumption by 26% ($191; 95% CI: $118-$264) and bill assistance payments by 20% ($106; 95% CI: $57-$155). Weatherization of 2,265 households from 2017 to 2021 freed up over $793,000 in bill assistance funding, which we estimate could support an additional 1,505 households. By quantifying the interconnections between bill assistance and weatherization, we provide needed evidence for leveraging these synergies and clarifying potential tradeoffs, to align poverty reduction, energy resilience, and climate change adaptation and mitigation goals. • Low-income energy bill assistance programs provide both temporary and ongoing support. • Priority populations use low-income energy assistance more often over long periods. • Low-income energy bill assistance and weatherization programs complement each other. • Weatherization consistently decreases energy bill assistance payments by 20 % after two years.