Before she sat down to speak with the Guardian, Zattura Sims-El leaned over to plug a table lamp into the wall.
“I keep everything in this house unplugged when I’m not using it, because I heard that as long as it’s plugged into the wall, it’s costing you,” she said. “The only things I don’t unplug are my stove, my dishwasher, my refrigerator and my washing machine.”
The 76-year-old resident of Baltimore, Maryland, adopted the habit in an attempt to rein in her utility costs. Despite her efforts, her monthly gas and electricity bills last year always topped $500, and one month reached $975.
“It’s obscene,” said Sims-El, who has lived in her home for 46 years. “How is anyone supposed to keep up with this?
During his 2024 campaign, Donald Trump repeatedly promised that, if elected, he would halve Americans’ energy bills within a year of returning to the White House. He has thoroughly failed to meet that pledge, a Guardian analysis has found.
“Trump is a liar, and that’s something I know from the bottom of my heart,” Sims-El said when asked about the president’s promise.
The average US household paid nearly $116 more for electricity in 2025 than the year before, a 6.7% increase, according to data from the Energy Information Administration. Gas prices rose as well, jumping 5.2% on average, federal data shows.
“If they keep rising, who is going to be able to pay their bills?” Sims-El asked. “Certainly not me, not anyone except the super-wealthy.”
Sacrifices
Sims-El said she has had to make lifestyle changes to cope with her energy costs. While she used to buy her groceries at a Giant supermarket nearby, she now drives to multiple stores each week to hunt for bargains – a process that can take hours.
Halfway across the country, Samantha Lott, a resident of Denton, Texas, has found herself tailoring her shopping habits to cope with rising energy costs, too. Last year, after Lott was diagnosed with endometriosis, her doctor suggested she adopt an anti-inflammatory diet. But the cost of energy has made it impossible to afford “anything but the basic groceries that I can find deals on”. And there’s an even more difficult sacrifice she now finds herself making: cutting back on medical appointments.
“It’s really hard, because I have to choose: do I go to the doctor this month and get the follow-up appointment I need, or do I pay for electricity?” she said. “The copay is $70 for an appointment, but I need that $70 to pay my bills.”
Liz Jacob, the lead staff attorney and energy insecurity coordinator at the Sugar Law Center for Economic and Social Justice in Detroit, Michigan, said she has seen many clients pushed to make those kinds of choices, “cutting back on food, toys, resources for their…
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