IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pwat00/0000123.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Affordability of household water services across the United States

Author

Listed:
  • Lauren A Patterson
  • Sophia A Bryson
  • Martin W Doyle

Abstract

Households that cannot be able to afford their water bills may lose access to drinking water and wastewater services. This study seeks to quantify how many households may struggle to pay for water services across 787 of the largest drinking water providers located within each state of the United States. Household water affordability is the ability for a household to pay for basic water services without undue hardship. Here, we select 6,000 gallons per month (22.7 m3/mo) as sufficient to meet basic needs and define undue hardship as spending more than 4.6% of household income (one day of labor each month) to pay for water services. Monthly bills are combined with census income data based on service area boundaries to determine how many households are spending more than 4.6% of their income on water services. We find that basic water services are unaffordable for 17% of the households (28.3 million persons) in this study. The median, or representative community, has one in seven households spending more than 4.6% of their income paying for water services. We developed a data visualization tool to allow users to explore how affordability challenges change across different volumes of water usage and levels of financial hardship (https://nicholasinstitute.duke.edu/water-affordability/water-affordability-united-states). This research shows that household water unaffordability is not a localized problem but rather is a challenge experienced by households in communities across the nation.

Suggested Citation

  • Lauren A Patterson & Sophia A Bryson & Martin W Doyle, 2023. "Affordability of household water services across the United States," PLOS Water, Public Library of Science, vol. 2(5), pages 1-17, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pwat00:0000123
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pwat.0000123
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/water/article?id=10.1371/journal.pwat.0000123
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/water/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pwat.0000123&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pwat.0000123?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Warner, Mildred E. & Zhang, Xue & Rivas, Marcela González, 2020. "Which states and cities protect residents from water shutoffs in the COVID-19 pandemic?," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    2. David A Keiser & Joseph S Shapiro, 2019. "Consequences of the Clean Water Act and the Demand for Water Quality," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 134(1), pages 349-396.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Nicolai V. Kuminoff, 2018. "Can Understanding Spatial Equilibria Enhance Benefit Transfers for Environmental Policy Evaluation?," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 69(3), pages 591-608, March.
    2. Haisheng Chen & Manhong Shen, 2022. "Do Central Inspections of Environmental Protection Affect the Efficiency of the Green Economy? Evidence from China’s Yangtze River Delta," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(1), pages 1-17, December.
    3. David A. Keiser & Joseph S. Shapiro, 2019. "US Water Pollution Regulation over the Past Half Century: Burning Waters to Crystal Springs?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 33(4), pages 51-75, Fall.
    4. repec:ags:aaea22:335843 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Valero, Diana & Cook, Jess & Lee, Angus & Browne, Alison L. & Ellis, Rowan & Pancholi, Vidya Sagar & Hoolohan, Claire, 2023. "Addressing water poverty under climate crisis: implications for social policy," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 120704, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    6. Joseph S. Shapiro & Reed Walker, 2018. "Why Is Pollution from US Manufacturing Declining? The Roles of Environmental Regulation, Productivity, and Trade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(12), pages 3814-3854, December.
    7. Jerch, Rhiannon L. & Phaneuf, Daniel J., 2024. "Cities and water quality," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    8. Malin Niemi & Nicklas Nordfors & Anna Tompsett, 2025. "Trade and pollution: Evidence from India," Papers 2502.09289, arXiv.org.
    9. J. Scott Holladay & Lawrence D. LaPlue, 2021. "Decomposing changes in establishment‐level emissions with entry and exit," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(3), pages 1046-1071, November.
    10. Stock, James H. & Bradt, Jacob T., 2020. "Analysis of proposed 20-year mineral leasing withdrawal in Superior National Forest," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 174(C).
    11. Lopamudra Chakraborti, 2021. "Impact of upstream plant level pollution on downstream water quality: evidence from the clean water act," Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 64(3), pages 517-535, February.
    12. Zhang, Jiarui & Phaneuf, Daniel J. & Schaeffer, Blake A., 2022. "Property values and cyanobacterial algal blooms: Evidence from satellite monitoring of Inland Lakes," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 199(C).
    13. Syezlin Hasan & Line Block Hansen & James C. R. Smart & Berit Hasler & Mette Termansen, 2022. "Tradeable Nitrogen Abatement Practices for Diffuse Agricultural Emissions: A ‘Smart Market’ Approach," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 82(1), pages 29-63, May.
    14. Campbell, Jason & Levkoff, Steven, 2025. "Assessing the productivity and abatement effects of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendment," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 54(1).
    15. Ying She & Yaobin Liu & Yangu Deng & Lei Jiang, 2020. "Can China’s Government-Oriented Environmental Regulation Reduce Water Pollution? Evidence from Water Pollution Intensive Firms," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(19), pages 1-19, September.
    16. Wang, Hao & Ploegmakers, Huub & van der Krabben, Erwin & Meijerink, Sander, 2024. "The environmental effectiveness of water quality trading: Evidence from emissions trading programs in China," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 224(C).
    17. Bergholt, Drago & Røisland, Øistein & Sveen, Tommy & Torvik, Ragnar, 2023. "Monetary policy when export revenues drop," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    18. John Cronin, 2019. "The Cuyahoga fire at fifty: a false history obscures the real water crisis that never ceased," Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, Springer;Association of Environmental Studies and Sciences, vol. 9(3), pages 340-351, September.
    19. Olivier Deschênes & Michael Greenstone & Joseph S. Shapiro, 2017. "Defensive Investments and the Demand for Air Quality: Evidence from the NOx Budget Program," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(10), pages 2958-2989, October.
    20. Richard W. DiSalvo & Elaine L. Hill, 2024. "Drinking water contaminant concentrations and birth outcomes," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 43(2), pages 368-399, March.
    21. Gonzalez, Rodrigo Barbone & Haas Ornelas, José Renato & Silva, Thiago Christiano, 2023. "The Value of Clean Water: Evidence from an Environmental Disaster," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 13273, Inter-American Development Bank.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pwat00:0000123. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: water (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/water .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.