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Abstract This study analyzes household energy insecurity in the United States during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Previous research is limited by mostly cross-sectional research designs that do not allow scholars to study the persistency of this specific type of material hardship. We fill this gap by analyzing data from an original, nationally-representative, panel survey of low-income households. We find high levels of energy insecurity during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, especially during the initial months when the economic dislocation was at its height, and that many low-income households experienced it on multiple occasions during this period. We also identify disparities: households with people of color, very low-income, children aged five years and younger, with someone who relies on an electronic medical device, and those living in deficient housing conditions were more likely to experience energy insecurity. Households with these characteristics were also more likely to suffer from energy insecurity on a persistent basis through the first year of the pandemic.
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Houselessness: Myth vs. Data
This brief draws on an ongoing remote ethnographic study examining how varying modes of housing insecurity are experienced by Alaskans. This includes: • an introduction to the term “houselessness,” which describes shifting modes of housing insecurity caused by socio-economic changes and unanticipated life events, but also housing shortages, difficulties acquiring land and permission for building new housing, and (especially for some Indigenous groups) the foreign nature of home financing. • reflections on the precarious living situations that Alaskans from rural communities’ experience across their lifetimes. • the need for further qualitative research that interrogates how assumptions about houselessness are experienced by Alaskans in different contexts, not least because the term houselessness is a proactive attempt to delimit narrowly defined and demeaning terms such as homelessness.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2103556
- PAR ID:
- 10400591
- Editor(s):
- Hermann, Victoria
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Contribution of the Arctic Institute
- Volume:
- 2021
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 0097-5559
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 9-12
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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