California rolls out income based electric bills

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The fairness comes from people who make more money are less impacted by paying more in taxes than those who don't. 35% of a person making $28k/year's income will impact them far more than 35% of a person making $100k a year, will impact them more than a person making $500k/year and so on. That's why flat taxes are regressive. They by design hurt lower income people more. Sales tax is another example of a regressive tax, by the way. Unfortunately we now live in a society where "I got mine, screw everyone else" is the default way of thinking for a lot of people.
Usually the lowest wage earners cost society the most.
 
The income below $69k and really $28k is nearing or at poverty and break on base fee makes sense.

Consumption charge remains same and guessing people at that income don’t have most energy efficient HVAC/appliances and consume a ton .

Wife/I help my inlaws who are below MA state poverty in retirement get all the benefits including free internet, cell service, SNAP food and about $600/year in energy (gas/electric) subsidies.

We all pay in wife’s family a lot into taxes….
 
Lot of well off people in California that have little reported income. Kids that have inherited houses with their parents estates, underground economy folks (like drug dealers and marijuana growers)that deal in cash, landlords that collect rent in unreported cash, convenience store families that only partially record sales, etc. Besides the other government benefits they collect, now earners are going to subsidize their electricity bills too?
I might be a hard ***, but my feeling is that if you can't afford California, move to some place less nice that you can afford. Like New Mexico. I say that as an ex-Californian that moved.
 
It’s a very dumb idea. At those low rates No one will conserve.
I think this is being misinterpreted. The actual electric bill will not be that amount you will still be charged by how much electricity used.
This is just the basic charge plus your electricity kWh.
This is a perfect example, how the media controls how the public acts.
Poor reporting, and misinformation
 
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I find that hard to believe...

I did a quick look on this, and would have to read more, in order to have an opinion about regressive, proportional (which I don't understand) and progressive taxes, the opinions about them in this vein of good/bad for the poor. I see I'm not going to come to an opinion in the next 5 minutes (too much reading to do, so as to create an informed opinion), so I'll leave it here.

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Question: how does this work with the power company? Do you have to send them last year's W2 or do they just take you at your word that you're low income and trustworthy? Can one just pay the max rate if they don't want to divulge their income?
I think everyone is reading the story wrong, people will still pay per kilowatt hour. These are not flat rate electric bills. It’s a flat rate charge that will be on your electric bill.

You still going to pay usage based on kilowatt hour =
“Overall, rates will decrease by about 33% per kilowatt hour for all residential customers”

This is just one more case of ignorant media reporting
 
On what planet does a POWER COMPANY, NOT a government entity, get the right to everyone’s income level?? This is basically a (semi-) regulated utility, would the government be passing out this information? Cannot be legal, even in the “People’s Republik of California”!
That tells you how much power, in reality, these companies have. It is the result of consolidation at any cost where the profits of businesses are more important than the overall well-being of society. Now you have three major power companies that rolled out this, but the reality is, they are blackmailing govt.
This is result of narrative: what is good for business it is good for everyone.
 

If you earn more, you pay more. ( for the "delivery fee" )

That’s the basic idea behind sweeping changes proposed by California’s three largest power companies that will impact your electricity bill.


  • Households earning less than $28,000 a year would pay a fixed charge of $15 a month on their electric bills in Edison and PG&E territories and $24 a month in SDG&E territory.
  • Households with annual income from $28,000 – $69,000 would pay $20 a month

And so on.....
Wonderful! {sarcasm}. I wonder if NY will follow, both states have me SMH in amazement!
 
Everyone needs to do a little more research. People in California will not pay a flat rate electric bill.
For goodness sake’s, complete reporting would inform everyone that it will be a flat rate charge added to your normal kilowatt per hour charge.
 
If they wanted to do this without saying they're doing this, they could have made the delivery fee less for people that live in high population density areas. They can say that since they can string twenty houses off one transformer (or whatever) the hookup fee can be reduced.

The heating oil dealers around me will cut you a deal if you get your whole trailer park to buy fuel on a particular Tuesday so their distribution expenses are less.
 
Nobody read the articles I see. This only impacts a small part of the delivery fee- not the actual consumption which will still be priced normally. This is a small savings to lower income people, not exactly sure why income-based pricing on a 100% essential like electricity or water is controversial but here we are.
Can we start with unfair and unjust? Never understood what is effectively penalizing success to some extant..yes, a gross oversimplification of this issue, but there seem to be some underlying desire on at least some folks part 'make'em pay' simply because they can. Getting off my soapbox...and get off my lawn:D
 
Can we start with unfair and unjust? Never understood what is effectively penalizing success to some extant..yes, a gross oversimplification of this issue, but there seem to be some underlying desire on at least some folks part 'make'em pay' simply because they can. Getting off my soapbox...and get off my lawn:D
Let me put it this way. If you make 200k/year and pay say 35% income tax (not including SS and medicare) you are left with 130k/year.

If you make let's say 36k/year and pay that same 35% income tax (*again not including SS & medicare) you are left with a bit over 23k. Who do you think is more affected by losing that 35%? The person making 200k will say oh maybe I won't buy a new boat THIS year instead of NEXT year.

The person making 36k says "hm do I put food on the table or replace the transmission in my 2000 Oldsmobile Alero so I can drive to work". Or more appropriate these days, "Do I put food on the table or get medical treatment for my child/myself and end up with a massive hospital bill".

If you really see this as "penalizing success" rather than "making sure society doesn't collapse by taking care of everyone" then I don't know what to tell you. If you really think they are comparable in any way maybe you should take a hard look at yourself. Somehow people like yourself seem to think society can exist without the bottom rungs of the ladder, and that those bottom rungs deserve nothing but the scraps rather than a decent life. And the last few years we saw people complaining that there wasn't enough workers in restaurants so you had to wait longer so it's even funnier to me.

Oh and let's not even bring up the cost of childcare in this country. People say "nobody wants to work anymore" well how CAN they when they need to take care of kids because daycare costs multiple tens of thousands of dollars a year. And then when people don't want to have kid because of the sheer cost, you see older folks in particular complaining that nobody is having kids anymore.
 
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Ameren Illinois charged me $38.15 last month for electric delivery.
This is mine.
Customer Charge $4.94
Meter Charge $5.22
Distribution Delivery Charge Non-Summer 719.00 kWh @ $ 0.03517000 $25.29
Electric Deferred Income Tax Adjustment $37.04 @ -0.710000% $-0.26
Electric Delivery $35.15
 
That tells you how much power, in reality, these companies have. It is the result of consolidation at any cost where the profits of businesses are more important than the overall well-being of society. Now you have three major power companies that rolled out this, but the reality is, they are blackmailing govt.
This is result of narrative: what is good for business it is good for everyone.
And yet somehow everyone in this thread is absolutely convinced that more companies that care only about filling shareholder pockets and themselves by increasing prices while also reducing how much you get for that money are needed because government is less efficient. Sure, but when all companies care about is "returning value to shareholders" why does ANYONE think they will do ANYTHING to the benefit of the consumer? It truly boggles the mind. But we gotta reward those vampiric companies for "being smart" so that they can make even more untold billions they'll spend on buying back stock instead of raising wages or increasing benefits.
 
Free stuff never made anyone successful ever. More free stuff just makes more poor people.

There might be an exception to this hard human rule, but we aren't in heaven.

And the power companies just see a path to charge rich people MORE. There is no other reason for them to favor this other than maybe the poor bums who never pay anyway, might actually pay a little, as well. Maybe.
 
On what planet does a POWER COMPANY, NOT a government entity, get the right to everyone’s income level?? This is basically a (semi-) regulated utility, would the government be passing out this information? Cannot be legal, even in the “People’s Republik of California”!
Somehow even though they are a private company you manage to still make it the government's fault, incredible.
 
Free stuff never made anyone successful ever. More free stuff just makes more poor people.

There might be an exception to this hard human rule, but we aren't in heaven.

And the power companies just see a path to charge rich people MORE. There is no other reason for them to favor this other than maybe the poor bums who never pay anyway, might actually pay a little, as well. Maybe.
This has never been true. Enough with the nonsense "pull yourself up by the bootstraps". The world is a different place than when you were a kid/young adult, it's not as easy as it was then and it wasn't easy then either. You know what people in Germany, UK, France, Japan, Korea, hell even Brazil don't have to worry about? Going to the doctor and owing thousands of dollars in medical bills. Also you know what they don't have to worry about? Getting laid off and worrying about how they'll feed their family while they look for a new job. The lack of humanity and compassion towards other people on display is really sad sometimes.
 
The first pilgrims tried the collectivist route for the first couple of years and it failed because the hard productive workers subsidized the ones that were lazy. Then they changed to the individual way.
That is a complete fantasy you dreamed up and does not track with reality. And if that was the case then literally, and I mean literally every other developed nation in the world would be in total collapse because they have things like universal healthcare, education, and good social safety nets. But that's not what happened. Gaslighting is a real thing. You've been gaslit by big companies and rich people who have everything to gain by keeping you in the world of paying them more money instead of having good social programs.
 
Let's expand on this entire philosophical concept here ...

If we accept that it's OK to charge richer people more money (because they simply have more of a commodity than someone else), then can we push that mantra into other things? Where does it end?
- If you agree that electricty delivery rates should be tiered based on personal income, then why not also the water delivery rates? And the sewage rates? And the trash disposal should have tiered rates?
- If you have more money, you should have to pay a higher tax rate in your school system, so they can build a bigger and better football field
- We probably should pay for postage based on personal income level too; a first-class stamp for a rich person should cost $3 but only $.50 for a poor person, all for the same first-class postage when you both mail in your payment on your tiered CA electric bill ...
- why don't we charge a higher rate for property taxes when you own more land? (up to 1 acre = Rate 1; up to 2 ac = Rate 2; up to 3ac at Rate 3, etc) - If you have more land, you can certainly afford to pay a higher property tax rate, right? If you own 1.1 acres and your nextdoor neighbor has .97 acres, it's fair for you to pay a higher property tax rate, right?


Not only should this work in the public sector, but it should extend into the private sector also ...
- when you order Domino's and they drive to your neighbor's house and charge $X for delivery, but charge you $X+Y for delivery, because you make more money than your neighbor, even though the delivery driver drove the same distance to park on the same spot on the street ... You should pay more because you make more, right?
- When you buy tires for your F150, you should pay a higher tire-tax for the brand and model of P265 tires as they guy who just put the exact same tires on his F150, because you can pay more, so you should pay more taxes on the identical product
- when you roll into Kroger to get your weekly foods for home, you should pay a higher sales tax rate for your eggs and milk and butter and bread because you make more money


There is always someone richer and poorer than you. You can find disparity everywhere in life. Trying to even the playing field by manipulating tax rates does not create excellence; it dilutes the efforts of all. Taxing rich people at higher rates encourages them to move elsewhere (taking their money with them), which means that pool of money you wanted to tap into is gone. Giving money to poor people does not incentivize them to excell or improve; it motivates them to do less.

Fair" used to be based on a concept of unbiased opportunity; everyone had the same chance to excel at something they were good at. Somehow, somewhere along the way, that word "fair" has become bastardized into meaning a gauranteed result no matter what happens.

Anyone who's had more than one child should try this at home ...
Hey Johnny, we know you've worked hard at mowing lawns after school while your twin brother Tommy played basketball with his buddies. But your brother Tommy is sad because he cannot afford to buy a nice bike like you bought with your hard earned money. So we're going to take some of your money and give it to your brother; it's only "fair" ... you've got more money that he does. Will Tommy be happy? Sure - he's getting a great deal. Is Johnny happy? Not in the least, and he's unlikely to continue to mow lawns if he's going to be "taxed" at a different rate.
 
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