I get my best sun tea on bright, hot days. After a few hours on my deck, the temperature inside the gallon container hits from 106°F to 109°F, resulting in a great brew.
Most years by late September sun tea season wanes, a lack of heat and sunshine producing less robust tea.
Not this year.
Unfortunately, the weather giving me great tea lightens the wallets of struggling families.
Each day the St. Louis Post-Dispatch publishes the tally of Cooling Degree Days. That’s a simple term for a complicated formula of average temperatures above 65°F translating into a greater need for air conditioning and thence higher electric bills. This September generated 395 Cooling Degree Days: the average for September is 203. In other words, this September required almost twice the air conditioning as a normal one.
That means that my next electric bill will look more like July than a normal September. And, it means that many families lose one of their low-cost months for utility bills.
Remember, per the latest census data, 809,000 Missourians live below the poverty line [ www.data.census.gov ] and better than 1.1 million have incomes so low that they qualify for food stamps or free school meals for their kids. That means that one in six of our neighbors earns so little that even the Republican controlled government admits they need help to get food.
And, their income is so low that paying utility bills too often remains a great challenge. Families need the lower energy costs months in spring and fall to catch-up from the cost of winter’s chill and summer’s swelter.
So, that ‘record warmth’ in September means that instead of a small electric bill in October they get a big one.
What is the Trump administration doing? Planning to make things worse.
This week administration officials will announce a rule change to food stamps. Instead of each state calculating what constitutes the ‘standard’ utility deduction to a family’s income calculation, they plan on imposing a new, national standard. The initial scuttlebutt suggests that some states get shortchanged from day one with the new rule: in every state a ‘record warm’ month will hurt families because they won’t get extra credit for the especially high bills. Bureaucrats expect this change to save Washington $4.5 billion over a decade.
Remember, the USDA just closed the comment period on a rule change to kick millions of ‘categorically eligible’ folks (mainly seniors) off food stamps, and, they also plan to use a cheaper cost of living adjustment formula. In the end the typical Missouri family could see their monthly benefit drop by $50. Or, five gallons of milk, five pounds of ground beef, three boxes of cereal and a bunch of bananas and grapes.
Perhaps we could help all those mired in poverty move to a place with an always moderate climate, reasonable food costs, affordable housing, good schools, and plenty of jobs…if you find that Utopia, please share.
For now we have to expect Mother Nature working with Donald Trump and Mike Parson to make life even harsher, degree by degree, for struggling families.
Oh, how do I know how hot my sun tea gets? A while back my daughter bought me a gadget, a laser temperature gun – something to amuse an old guy. (I bet most low-income families don’t have such a luxury.)
Glenn