Electricity prices are becoming an outsize issue in American politics because they themselves are legitimately outsize. Compared with the cost of consumer goods, which have been rising rapidly over the past few years, electricity prices are climbing even faster, an estimated 13 percent nationwide since 2022. This year, roughly half of households making less than $50,000 struggled to pay their electricity bills. In California, where the rise has been particularly steep, rates have essentially doubled over the past decade. When electricity was first commercialized, utilities were allowed to operate as monopolies for one main reason: to deliver lower costs. For a century, it worked. Companies spread the fixed costs of growing the system across their locked-in customers, and prices dropped precipitously. In 1890, a kilowatt-hour was $9.48 on average nationwide in today's dollars; by 1950, it had dropped to 41 cents and, by 1990, to 21 cents. But recently, this century-long trend has...
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