The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) is a federal, multi-billion dollar direct federal spending program managed by the Administration for Children and Families within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). In addition to being reauthorized and funded at $4.1 billion for 2025, the program received $500 million from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) to support low-income families nationwide by subsidizing their heating and cooling energy costs via bill and energy crisis assistance, as well as deploy weatherization and energy efficiency upgrades to residential buildings. However, last week the program was kneecapped.
In the first days of April, the Trump administration laid off about 10,000 employees from HHS, including the entire LIHEAP staff of around 25 employees. This marks an enormous challenge for the program’s management, as well as the about $400 million left to be disbursed through September 2025 to states for bill assistance meant to combat summer heat and the $100 million in IIJA funds left to be spent in fiscal year 2026.
According to the Buildings Hub’s Residential Characteristics Dashboard, about seven million households nationwide have received energy bill assistance as of the 2020 Residential Energy Consumption Survey. LIHEAP is one such energy bill assistance program. The seven million households represent about six percent of households scattered across the country (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Households Receiving Energy Assistance, 2020
Source: Atlas Buildings Hub Residential Building Characteristics Dashboard | Color saturation represents the percentage of households in a state that have ever received energy assistance.
California holds the highest percentage of energy assistance households at ten percent, while Florida trails the pack at 0.8 percent. In terms of the number of households, California has the greatest number of energy assistance households at over 1.3 million, while Delaware has the fewest at 5,753 households.
While HHS officials stated that the agency would continue to “comply with statutory requirements,” state officials managing LIHEAP dollars nationwide have expressed concern. This concern is reflected in the many headlines coming out of local news outlets nationwide, including these from Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Each article describes confusion at the state level and the health risks to the thousands of people — particularly those with disabilities, low-income households, and the elderly — that rely on the program now face.
LIHEAP pauses have hit states before, largely due to bureaucratic or financial difficulties at the state level. In 2023, Florida’s program received double the funding than in years past, but the program was frozen in the midst of a summer swelter. After a three month pause, hundreds of people filed for support, overwhelming local program managers. When energy is too expensive, households give up other necessities like gas for transportation or food costs to make ends meet. Alternatively, they bear the extreme heat or cold, leaving them vulnerable to conditions such as heat sickness and dehydration in the heat and hypothermia and pneumonia in the cold, among other illnesses. These conditions are exacerbated for residents of poorly weatherized or less energy efficient homes.
Almost every state has some sort of state- or utility-run program offering energy bill assistance. Often, these programs work in tandem with federal support to make energy affordable for each state’s most vulnerable populations. Many of these programs can be found on Buildings Hub’s Spotlight States dashboard. Currently, energy prices are in a bit of a shoulder season, after the price spikes from winter but before those of the summer. States have time to scramble to account for their resources and assess how they may best face the looming burden of summer cooling bills.
A letter signed by a bipartisan group of Senators has been circling as of its release on April 3, asking HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy to protect staff and funding to preserve the program. State delegations such as Vermont have also sent in similar letters. These pleas to save the program arrive in synchronicity with tariffs on Canadian energy sources serving the Northeast and Midwest. Representatives and advocates will continue to lift their voices in support of the program in the coming weeks, with particular focuses on effectively distributing the summer’s LIHEAP funding and bolstering state and utility bill assistance programs. As of now, state leaders such as Governor Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania are continuing to encourage residents to apply, as LIHEAP funding remains open in many states through most of April, while utilities such as PECO and PGW also in Pennsylvania broadcast their alternative bill assistance programs.
