Con Edison Rate Hike Fuels Energy Insecurity for One in Three New Yorkers

Soaring utility bills are pushing more New Yorkers to the brink, shining a spotlight on a citywide affordability crisis—and testing political nerve.

It is, by now, a bleak winter ritual: as the mercury dips, New Yorkers brace for another spike in their utility bills. In a city famed for its high cost of living, the timing could hardly be more inauspicious. This year, Con Edison, the city’s dominant energy supplier (serving some 3.5 million residents), has sought permission for yet another rate increase: 2.8% for electricity and 2% for gas. The company’s original proposal portended a far punchier, double-digit jump, only curtailed after public outcry and pointed intervention from elected officials.

On its face, the increase may seem paltry—roughly $3-7 extra a month for the average household. Yet for nearly a third of New Yorkers, according to a recent city comptroller’s report, energy insecurity has ceased to be an abstract concept. These are households already stretched, forced to juggle essentials: heating or health care, groceries or keeping the lights on. “These are not optional things. These are necessary things. Energy is a human right,” argues Michael-Luca Natt, an activist with the Sunrise Movement.

The plight of this precarious slice of the city has, of late, travelled from press conferences into the corridors of power. President Donald Trump, no stranger to New York’s idiosyncrasies, recently chided both Con Edison and local officials during a sit-down with mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani. “If we’re sending fuel at a much lower price than it was a year ago, which is true, we have to get Con Edison to start lowering their rates,” he intoned, in a rare foray into municipal pricing.

The company, for its part, has offered soothing noises. “We welcome the opportunity to partner with the mayor-elect on solutions that make New York affordable for everyone,” it wrote after the President’s remarks, though not before reiterating that costs—some shaped by regulatory mandates and rising transmission expenditures—continue their relentless climb. That rings hollow to advocates, who have watched years of above-inflation bumps pile up. “That’s where this money is going—to fill someone’s pockets,” sighs Durga Sreenivasan, founder of Equal Planet, a climate advocacy group.

For New York itself, the stakes are plain: the city already wrestles with a panoply of affordability problems. Wages for many remain stagnant even as rents and living costs soar. Utility bills, though representing a smaller slice of overall household expenditure than housing, are among the most regressive: poorer families pay a proportionally higher share, and missed payments can quickly snowball into evictions or disconnections. The result is a steady drumbeat of hardship stories, now augmented by mounting data.

Second-order effects are harder to reckon but no less consequential. For years, a tepid social safety net—energy subsidies, bill assistance, state-run programmes—has struggled to keep pace. The city’s economy bounces back and forth between boom and bust, but energy costs rarely fall. In political circles, every uptick becomes a cudgel for progressive activists and a wedge issue for those wary of climate mandates (which sometimes hike costs further). Meanwhile, more New Yorkers flee to cheaper climes, undermining loftier visions of an ever-growing, ever-diverse metropolis.

A global scan suggests New York is hardly unique. Across major cities—from London to Toronto to Berlin—energy affordability is a rising concern, sporadically nudging governments into price caps or windfall taxes on sluggish utilities. American cities, with their patchwork of deregulated utilities and limited means of direct intervention, lag their European counterparts in relief schemes. And New York’s curious blend of outdated infrastructure, strong public unions, and activist politics make for an especially fractious mix.

The intractable arithmetic of urban life

Is there a way out for the weary consumer? The Public Service Commission, the final arbiter of Con Edison’s proposal, must now choose between ratifying the rise or risking cuts to grid maintenance and reliability. Subsidies could, in theory, buffer the poorest, but calls for ever more public support could further strain city and state budgets already uncomfortably taut. Demands for deep investment in renewables—a popular refrain—risk trading off short-term cost relief for long-term benefits, not all of which will accrue to current ratepayers.

Nor does the company appear eager to shrink profit margins. Its annual earnings remain buoyant (net income for parent company Consolidated Edison Inc. hovered around $1.6bn last year), attracting both shareholder applause and activist ire. The blunt truth is that New York—aging, crowded, perennially in need of upgrades—costs a fortune to keep running. Clean energy mandates pile on further: as fossil fuel plants retire and more wind and solar plug in, both capital costs and ratepayer risk rise.

Consumer activism is stirring, yet its effectiveness is patchy. While campaigns by groups like Sunrise Movement and Equal Planet have brought political heat, their most visible wins to date have been whittling down the size of increases, not reversing the broader trajectory. Market reforms—such as breaking up monopolies or changing rate structures—linger on the legislative backburner. Meanwhile, the city’s incoming mayor inherits a problem that defies easy populist solutions.

The outlines of New York’s affordability woes have, if anything, grown sharper in recent years. A third of residents, or nearly three million souls, now wrestle with the monthly decision to pay utilities in full. Absentee landlords, illegal conversions, and rent arrears only multiply the challenge, making efficient targeting of aid more elusive. The city’s own climate and housing goals quietly depend on a steady, affordable energy supply—a circle now increasingly hard to square.

It is tempting, as always, to blame the utility or the hapless bureaucracy. But the reality is more prosaic: the tangled algebra of urban life, where infrastructure, regulation, and expectation collide. Nudging rates lower is not, as some politicians suggest, a matter of sheer will; it demands ruthless prioritisation and, often, unpalatable trade-offs. Without a credible pathway to tackle growing costs—energy, housing, transport—the city risks erosion of its economic base and civic fabric alike.

For now, the immediate decision rests with the Public Service Commission. However it rules, the central tension will endure: pressing need versus the daunting cost of modern life. Unless national or state policy delivers firmer interventions or a surge in wage growth materialises, New Yorkers face a cold comfort: learning to endure what they cannot change—and fighting, in the meantime, for every modest respite. ■