Middle Class Supports. Winter home heating prices have increased almost 80% since 2001. As prices continue to rise, more and more aspiring middle-class Americans are struggling to heat their homes in the winter and cool them in the summer. The Low-Income Home Energy Assistance program is critical to helping lower income Americans who use a disproportionately large amount of their household income on energy costs cope with rising home heating. According to the National Energy Assistance Director’s Association, the majority of these households have at least one member who is elderly, disabled, or a child under five. While the number of households receiving assistance has increased along with rising energy costs in recent years, the average LIHEAP grant has declined from $349 to $305 per household. The additional appropriations made in the Warm in Winter and Cool in Summer Act will help prevent states from reducing the number of grants they issue or cutting the amount of each grant. This supplemental appropriation is critical to ensuring that rising energy prices do not continue to eat up the budgets of aspiring middle-class Americans.

LIHEAP funds can also serve as an economic stimulus in a weak economy. The program can help low-income households avoid cutting back their spending on other goods in order to afford home energy costs. In this way, necessary consumer spending can be maintained, helping to jumpstart an economy suffering from reduced spending.