Affordability – Page 2 – Manny Teodoro

Taxing questions 💻

Devils (and angels) in the details, Part 5The ironic regressivity of a luxury taxIn early January the California Water Board (SWRCB) published its long-anticipated draft proposal for a statewide low-income water bill assistance program. I’ve

Paper Pushing 💻

Devils (and angels) in the details, Part 4Nobody wants to talk about this partIn early January the California Water Board published its long-anticipated draft proposal for a statewide low-income water bill assistance program. In the

Life Support 💻

Devils (and angels) in the details, Part 3In early January the California Water Board released its draft proposal for a statewide low-income water bill assistance program. My last couple posts summarized the proposal and

Perverse incentives 💻

Devils (and angels) in the details, Part 2It's always about the money.In early January the California Water Board released its draft proposal for a statewide low-income water bill assistance program. My last post summarized

California’s bold proposal for statewide water bill assistance 💻

Devils (and angels) in the details, Part 1Governor Newsom (nice haircut in the black jacket, back to the camera) dragged his cabinet down the Central Valley to hear what folks had to say about

Water & Sewer Affordability in America 💻

A reasonable expectationWhat low-income households pay for essential service in the United StatesThis post reports findings from 2017; an update for 2019 is available here.Over the past 18 months I’ve been working to develop

Movement on Measurement 💻

Sometimes progress is visible in what you don’t seeEarlier this week I had the pleasure of speaking to the annual conference of the California Water Association, an organization of that state’s investor-owned water utility

Water Pros and Regular Joes 💻

How utility people—and everybody else—think about water issuesWhere's your head at?Each year the American Water Works Association (AWWA) conducts a survey of its members on the State of the Water Industry (SOTWI). The survey

Inoculation & Therapy 💻

Yeah this stinks kid, but it beats smallpoxWhy rate structures, not assistance programs, offer the most promising path to water affordabilityWhen discussions of water and sewer affordability turn to policy solutions, they typically focus

Why now | Why us | Why it matters 💻

Remarks from the opening plenary session of the AWWA/WEF Transformative Issues SymposiumEarlier this week the American Water Works Association and Water Environment Federation hosted their first-ever Transformative Issues Symposium, a two-day meeting focused on a

Answering the Bell 💻

Social science and defying the choice between clean and affordable waterThomas Hearns, the Motor City Cobra. One of my all-time favorites. Warning: sports cliché coming.Boxing is more popular as a literary metaphor than as a

Zombie Metrics 💻

This guy measures water affordability as (Avg bill ÷ MHI)<2.0%Terrible, horrible, no good, very bad measurement, part 4My criticism of average bill ÷ Median Household Income (MHI) as a measure of household-level water affordability

Water Affordability’s Golden Numbers 💻

Not actually in the book of NumbersTerrible, horrible, no good, very bad measurement, part 3As my last couple of posts explain, the conventional method of measuring household-level water affordability is to divide a utility’s

Looking at the Wrong Things 💻

Terrible, horrible, no good, very bad measurement, part 2As my last post explained, the conventional method of measuring household-level water affordability is to divide a utility’s average residential bill by its community’s Median Household

Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Measurement 💻

This officer is not trying to measure statewide alcohol salesA feral howl on the conventional method of assessing household water affordability, part 1Recently a colleague asked me how I first got interested in water

Cheeseburgers & water bills 💻

Why water utility service can be simultaneously underpriced and unaffordableAnalysis of water and sewer affordability implies a concern that the prices of these critical services might be too high. At the same time, decades

Tax Collectors and Other Sinners 💻

What California’s SB-623 reveals about water affordability and the politics of public financeWho shall pay? is the perennially vexing refrain for would-be providers of public goods. Everyone likes nice things; no one likes to

Water & Fire 💻

The case for rate-funded water affordabilityWarning: this post contains hardcore wonkery.One of the most trenchant questions that emerged during the recent California State Water Resources Control Board affordability symposium (pursuant to California AB-401) was

Water affordability as poetry and prose 💻

Can declaring a human right to water help address affordability?Something extraordinary is unfolding in California.In 2012, to great fanfare, California governor Jerry Brown signed into law Assembly Bill 685, which amended the state’s water