Some individual water utilities are continuing to suspend shutoffs, even after state bans expire, while some others never do shutoffs at all for non-payment. At least one of those states (Wisconsin) is set to end its moratorium on April 15, placing over 20,000 households at risk of shutoff. Only eight states have statewide water shutoff moratoria in place today. The Biden Administration and Congress have not acted on urgent calls to ban water shutoffs during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to research at Indiana University that looked at a nationally representative sample of households below 200% of the Federal Poverty Level, 20% of Black households and 28% of Hispanic households reported being unable to pay an energy bill between June and August 2020, compared to just 12% of white households. The risk of disconnection disproportionately harms communities of color. Water and other utility services already have been disconnected for at least hundreds of thousands families unable to pay these bills, with more at risk every day.
A recent report by Duke University researchers found that, if utility disconnections had been barred nationwide from March through November 2020, COVID-19 infections rates could have been reduced by 8.7% and deaths by 14.8%.īut tens of millions of people are continuing to accumulate tens of billions of dollars of overdue utility bills. Maintaining access to water and other essential utility services remains as vital as ever to safeguard public health, as the pandemic continues.
But the vaccines are still in a race against time, with COVID-19 again resurging in many states. This blog is co-authored by Larry Levine (NRDC) and Olivia Wein (National Consumer Law Center).įor many of us, the accelerating rollout of COVID-19 vaccines provides hope for a light at the end of the tunnel.
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