Measuring and Addressing Water and Waste Water Affordability in the United States
Measuring and addressing the rising cost of water in the U.S.
By Michael Grinshpun
June 2020
Over recent years, the cost of water and wastewater service has increased rapidly in communities across the United States, posing a threat to access and public health, especially among low-income and marginalized communities. With evidence suggesting costs will continue to rise, the Institute for Sustainable Energy (now the Boston University Institute for Global Sustainability) developed metrics to better measure the scope of this affordability problem and offer new recommendations for how decision-makers can take action.
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Key Takeaways
- Financial assistance for water and wastewater services is far from sufficient and significantly less developed than affordability programs for other essential services.
- As affordability struggles increase overall, households will be forced to make budget trade-offs that may lead to water and wastewater shutoffs, home liens, and potentially a loss of shelter.
- This report proposes metrics and offers an Excel tool created for decision-makers to measure the prevalence and intensity of this unaffordability problem.
- When applied to case studies addressing affordability, these metrics revealed insights about the scope of solutions needed from utilities, states, and the federal government.
- Deeper analysis and more attention are needed to better understand the affordability of water and wastewater services, and the use of proper metrics is central to this work.