2020 Residential Energy Consumption Survey (RECS), Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) Administrative Data Matching

The statute of the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) block grant (42 U.S.C. 8621) requires the program to collect data on recipient and eligible households, to report to Congress on program impacts annually, to develop performance goals, to ensure that benefits are targeted to those households with the greatest home energy need, and to assure that timely resources are available to households experiencing home energy crises. OCS uses of a number of existing data sources to develop information on households that are income-eligible for LIHEAP. These include the following: • The Department of Energy’s Residential Energy Consumption Survey (RECS) (OMB Control Number 1905-0092), which provides the most accurate information available about the demographic, economic, and energy-usage characteristics of U.S. households; and • State administrative data, which provide the most accurate information about LIHEAP recipient households and which flow into the LIHEAP Household Report (OMB Control No. 0970-0060). Neither the RECS nor the State administrative data alone provides information about the demographic, economic, and energy-usage characteristics of LIHEAP recipient households. (RECS’ LIHEAP recipiency information is too unreliable for this purpose.) The only data that provides such information is that from the RECS respondents which the State administrative data demonstrates received LIHEAP benefits. OCS seeks to collect State administrative data to identify the households in the RECS that are known to have received LIHEAP benefits. It plans to use the data so collected to generate a dataset that shows, of LIHEAP recipient households: (1) the demographic, economic, and energy-usage characteristics presented by the RECS; and (2) information, from the State administrative data, on program participation, program benefits, poverty status, vulnerability status, and (at the States’ options) ownership/rentership, type of fuel use, and heat-in-rent. OCS plans to use the resultant dataset in various analyses that characterize LIHEAP recipient households and that compare recipients to income-eligible non-recipients. Such datasets will allow OCS to study the impact of LIHEAP on income eligible and recipient households in accordance with section 2610(b)(2) of the LIHEAP statute. Such studies will enter into the following publications and analyses: • The Department's annual LIHEAP Report to Congress and LIHEAP Home Energy Notebook; and • Estimates about fuel usage, expenditures, energy burden, and LIHEAP targeting among LIHEAP recipient households.

The latest form for 2020 Residential Energy Consumption Survey (RECS), Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) Administrative Data Matching expires 2023-06-30 and can be found here.