Imagine opening your electric bill in 2035 and seeing a number that looks more like a car payment—or worse, a second mortgage. For the typical American family, a 10× increase in electricity prices over the next decade would be more than sticker shock. It would upend daily life, destabilize budgets, and redefine what it means to be middle class.

A Middle Class on Edge

Right now, most families treat the monthly power bill as background noise—maybe $150, maybe $200. Annoying, but manageable. Multiply that by ten and suddenly you’re staring down a $2,000 monthly payment. That’s $24,000 a year, nearly the same as the median household spends on housing.

Middle-class families wouldn’t crumble overnight, but they would bend. Vacations vanish, restaurant nights shrink, and big-ticket splurges like cars or remodels become rare. Instead, every spare dollar flows into solar panels, battery packs, heat pumps, and insulation. Energy efficiency would no longer be about being “green”; it would be about staying solvent. Families with home equity or credit might manage the transition, but many would take on crushing debt just to keep the lights—and the air conditioning—on.

The result? A middle class stripped of its cushion, living with a constant undercurrent of financial anxiety.

The Lower Class in Crisis

For lower-income households, the story is bleaker. Families already spend up to a fifth of their income on energy. Multiply their bills tenfold and electricity alone devours nearly everything. The choice becomes brutal: power or rent, power or food, power or medicine.

Without massive subsidies or bailouts, millions would slip into what experts call “energy poverty.” Imagine families crowding into relatives’ homes, urban residents crammed into sweltering apartments because they can’t afford to run air conditioning, children doing homework by flashlight at a library because the lights at home are shut off.

Health risks would surge: heat deaths in summer, freezing deaths in winter, asthma from wood stoves or propane heaters used indoors out of desperation. Energy poverty wouldn’t be a line in an economics report—it would be a public health emergency.

A Divided Nation

The irony is that the wealthy would still live comfortably. They’d have solar arrays, backup batteries, and smart homes sipping power like a Prius on a downhill coast. The middle class would be squeezed, angry, and restless. The poor would be pushed to the brink.

America would become a two-tier energy society: one half living off clean, self-sufficient power, the other half rationing light bulbs and shivering through winters. That divide would shape politics, culture, and the very sense of fairness in this country.

A Warning Worth Heeding

The prospect of electricity costs rising tenfold is not guaranteed—but it is possible if grids falter, demand soars, or markets misfire. And if it happens, it won’t just be another bill gone bad. It will be the fault line along which America’s middle class cracks and its lower class collapses.

We can avert this. Investing in renewable generation, building smarter grids, and protecting vulnerable households are not optional luxuries—they’re necessities. Because if electricity becomes the new mortgage, the American Dream may flicker out for millions.