Heating Bills Burdening Low-Income Households
By Yoon Ja-young
Staff Reporter
Amid the cold snap that has sent temperatures to their lowest in years, many households in middle- and low-income brackets are suffering from a spike in heating bills.
They are using more heating fuel than before, but prices have jumped during the past few months, leaving them dumbstruck when they get the bills.
According to the Statistics Korea, prices of liquefied natural gas (LPG) supplied to metropolitan area rose 7.1 percent last December compared with a year ago.
Briquettes, on which many underprivileged families resort for heating, rose 20 percent, and kerosene, also mostly used by the working class households and the self-employed marked a 3.9 percent rise.
These figures far surpass the 2.8 percent consumer price rise of December last year.
Behind the rise are soaring global oil and other resources prices. Crude oil, which once fell to $38 per barrel last year, marked $82.75 per barrel last week, soaring by 4.3 percent from the previous week and marking a 15-month record high.
``The global cold spell, gave upward momentum to oil prices, and an increasing preference on risk assets amid a globally strong stock market is also pulling it up oil,'' said Lee Seok-jin, an analyst at Tong Yang Securities.
Despite the rising prices, households are consuming more fuel due to the cold. LPG providers estimate consumption to have increased by over 20 percent this winter compared with last year.
Electricity usage is also breaking records each day, leading the government warn of possible blackouts next week.
As both fuel consumption and prices have explosively increased, the household economy is being shocked by heating bills.
Baek Kyung-sun, a housewife who uses a gas fired boiler to heat a 138 square meter apartment in Seoul, was charged over 160,000 won for LPG last month. She used to pay around 90,000 won a month, but the bill surged despite her efforts to save energy. ``I made my husband wear long johns and a thick pullover at home and set the boiler at a lower temperature than before, but it doesn't seem to be working,'' Baek said.
At 82cook.com, a Website popular among housewives, an increasing number of people are asking for tips to save heating fuel.
Some of them are failing to pay the bills. According to Rep. Shin Hak-yong of the main opposition Democratic Party, around 76,000 households had their gas supply stopped last year having failed to pay their bills on time.