New Yorkers now pay more for electricity than residents of 47 other states. The state’s average residential price hit 29.93 cents per kilowatt-hour in May, 62.3 percent above the U.S. average, with only Hawaii and California charging more. The figures were published Thursday in the Empire Center’s monthly energy bulletin, drawn from federal Energy Information Administration data. New York ranked fourth a month earlier.
The gap is widening. Between April and May, New York’s price rose 1.6 percent while the national average fell 2.1 percent. Over twelve months, New York prices climbed 12 percent — double the pace of the national increase.
For businesses, the comparison with competing states matters most. New York’s rates run nearly double Florida’s and more than 80 percent above Texas’s. New Jersey households paid 23.27 cents per kilowatt-hour and Pennsylvania 21.55 cents. None of New York’s neighbors — Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania or Vermont — paid more.
Electricity is a fixed cost no operator can negotiate away.
A bakery running ovens, a warehouse running refrigeration, a manufacturer running a line — each pays roughly 60 cents on the dollar more for the same kilowatt than the average American competitor, and close to double what a Texas rival pays. That difference compounds monthly and lands in margins and shelf prices.
Empire Center President Zilvinas Silenas tied the ranking to state policy. “If this is affordability, New Yorkers cannot afford it,” he said, arguing the state’s energy rules have pushed costs up for years. He also pointed to the difficulty of siting new generation, saying New York has made it very hard to build power plants of any kind. The environmental group Earthjustice has countered that the causes are more complicated than plant closures alone.
Supply pressure sits behind the numbers. New York’s grid operator warned that rising demand paired with shrinking fossil-fuel generating capacity could produce outages in New York City, prompting state regulators to demand a reliability plan from Con Edison. Con Edison is raising rates on customers this year. Tight supply and rate increases arriving together is the arithmetic of the ranking.
Natural gas shows a milder version of the same pattern. New York households paid $22.74 per thousand cubic feet in May against a national average of $19.83, a premium of 14.7 percent, placing the state 19th nationally. Gas prices were down 2.3 percent from a year earlier even as the national figure rose 3.1 percent — but since 2019, New York’s average has climbed 62.5 percent against 55.4 percent nationwide.
One caveat belongs on the electricity figures. The state averages are approximations, calculated from residential sales revenue and volume rather than actual retail rates. They track direction and scale reliably; they are not a reading of any single customer’s bill.
The direction is what should concern employers.
New York has been separating from the national market for several years, and the May data shows it separating faster. Every month the state adds to that gap raises the cost of operating here relative to Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Texas and Florida — states actively recruiting the businesses paying those bills.
JBizNews Desk | New York
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