Andrew Rosenthal, "Have you ever found it difficult/confusing to read your utility bill? If so, what makes them confusing? (Q38a Wi2020)", contributed by Andrew Rosenthal and Alison Kenner, The Energy Rights Project, Platform for Experimental Collaborative Ethnography, last modified 30 June 2021, accessed 26 April 2024. https://energyrights.info/content/have-you-ever-found-it-difficultconfusing-read-your-utility-bill-if-so-what-makes-them
Critical Commentary
This chart reflects responses to Question #38 from the Winter 2020 Survey, which asks respondents, “Have you ever found it difficult/confusing to read your utility bill? If so, what makes them confusing?” This was an open ended question.
There were a total of eighty-three respondents who answered this question.
Forty-two respondents (50.6%) reported they had never been confused by their utility bill.
Five respondents (6%) responded “sometimes.”
Two respondents (2.4%) indicated they did not read their bill and simply paid them.
One respondent (1.2%) did not know.
One respondent (1.2%) did not pay their houses’ utility bills.
One respondent gave another answer and talked about learning about wattages (1%).
Thirty-one respondents indicated that they had been confused by their energy bill before (37.3%).
Of the respondents that said yes, thirteen indicated terminology was the most confusing. Two respondents (2.4%) were confused about date ranges. Three respondents (3.6%) were confused by the amount of energy they used. Two respondents (2.4%) were confused about the format. Ten respondents (12.1%) were confused about the fees in the bills.
The data was produced by the Shifting Energy Demands in COVID-19 Survey - Overview, which was administered to 83 people over a fourteen week period between December 2020 and March 2021. Visit the Winter 2020 Shifting Energy Demands in COVID-19 - Survey Results page to view more data from our survey. The project is approved by Drexel’s IRB.