Oil Costs Hit Middle Class

The cost of heating oil and natural gas are starting to hit the middle class. According to an article in the NY Times - Middle Class Gets in Line for Help With Rising Heating Bills, people who have never showed up for assistance through LIHEAP (Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program) in New York are showing up now. They are likely showing up at other offices as well. Unfortunately, few of these wealthier arrivals are eligible for the program and are sent on their way. The next stop is a food program. Many of these are people who are cutting down on meals, turning off their heat because they can't afford to by heating fuel, and have taken other steps (such as skipping a mortgage payment) to try and make ends meet. Welcome to the middle class.

Heating fuel costs are 30% to 50% over what they were a year ago, and natural gas is 100% over what it was two years ago. If the middle class can't bear the costs, then you can imagine the straits of the working and lower classes.

In New York, a family of four has to earn under $41,616 and a family of two under $28,296, to be eligible for LIHEAP (NY Times). The folks showing up for assistance have never sought aid before. Now they are stretched past the limit to try and heat their homes. There are no assistance programs for the middle class. One might ask if the middle class is needing help, whether they are truly middle class any longer. When you add the cost of fuel and food increases to the heating situation then a revision may well be needed. Unfortunately, neither energy costs or food are part of the official consumer price index. Further, the CPI does not set the poverty line either which in the U.S. is essentially three times the cost of a month's groceries. This means that people's quality of life is slipping rather drastically, but there is no official measure to capture that slide. How convenient when one is trying to push the myth of a rising economy.

Meet the new poor, those with resources but not enough to keep from starving. How many will need to sell their homes to be able to both have heat and food? And what of those below them, who have no fall-back resources at all? The streets? In winter? Will this picture make the headline news? Unlikely.