How Obama’s green energy policies are bad for the poor

Washington Examiner ^ | 10/02/2012 | Philip Klein

[SeekAndFind]

President Obama has made so-called “green energy” policies a key part of his economic agenda, but as a new book argues, they actually disproportionately hurt the poor by boosting the cost of energy.

Last week, Examiner columnist and Manhattan Institute fellow Diana Furchtgott-Roth, author of the new book “Regulating to Disaster: How Green Jobs Policies Are Damaging America’s Economy,” explained that:

Most people think green is good but pay little attention to associated increases in costs. In 2015, it will cost between $49 and $79 to generate one megawatt hour of electricity from natural gas. A megawatt hour from onshore wind will cost between $75 and $138, and from solar photovoltaic will cost between $242 and $455.

As her book demonstrates in this chart, rising costs of energy hit lower income Americans the hardest, because they spend a higher proportion of their incomes on energy:

Energy Costs as a Percentage of Income by Quintile, 2011

[E. Pluribus Unum]

It's simple.

Cheap energy = more jobs = widespread prosperity

Artificially expensive energy = fewer jobs = widespread poverty

[twistedwrench]

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[RWB Patriot]

“Artificially expensive energy = fewer jobs = widespread poverty”

And more government dependence...and isn’t that what’s always been the government’s goal?