“President Trump is once again proposing to eliminate a program that helps low-income people heat and cool their homes.
The president’s budget, released Friday, states that the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) should be cut.
As of February, people were paying 11 percent more than the same time last year for their gas utilities and 4.8 percent more for electricity.”
The Trump adminstration continues to attack every safety net program as it continues the assault on the poor and working poor.
Currently one in six households in the U.S. are delinquent on their utility bills. Stripping away the LIHEAP program during a time when administration policies have and continue to increase energy costs is cruel and shortsighted.
LIHEAP Facts at a glance
- Total Served: Recent reports indicate roughly 5.9 million households were served in FY2021 and over 5.9 million as of 2023.
- Record Highs: In FY23, a record 7.1 million households received assistance with heating and cooling.
- Target Population: Assistance is focused on households with low incomes (at or below 150% of the federal poverty guidelines or 60% of state median income).
- Vulnerable Households: Priority is often given to households with older adults, individuals with disabilities, and young children.
- Impact of Funding: Without sustained funding, up to 1.5 million households could lose coverage.
Climate change will amplify the impact of any reduction to the LIHEAP program.
By late 2025, 14 million Americans faced severe utility debt, with nearly 1 in 6 households behind on energy bills. From January through September 2024, power shutoffs increased by nearly 21% compared to 2023, a trend that continued into 2025, with over 400,000 disconnections occurring during the summer months.
Extreme heat, the deadliest type of disaster, claims about 154 lives daily in the US. The surge in summer disconnections in states without shutoff protections has directly resulted in deaths among vulnerable residents, including those with pre-existing conditions and the elderly.
About 14.5 million households use medical devices that require electricity. In 2023, over 8 million households with at least one person with a disability reported a power outage, and for many in 2025, these outages constituted life-threatening emergencies.
If you are tired of our government finding money for seemingly everything but taking care of the most vulnerable persons in our population please contact your federal representatives and your state’s governor and tell them to oppose any reductions or elimination of LIHEAP funds or programs.
We’re all we’ve got.
https://www.congress.gov/members/find-your-member
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