By the Numbers: An Affordability and Safety Crisis
Whether Americans own or rent, too many struggle to pay for basic shelter and heat. Twenty-four percent of homeowners were cost-burdened (spending more than 30% of income on housing) in 2024, the highest level of cost burden since 2011, according to recent analysis by the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies. Affordability dominates political campaigns and headlines; Google searches for “affordability” are at an all-time high since 2009, when the U.S. was deep in a recession triggered by the collapse of the mortgage market. Underbuilding after that crisis partly explains the housing shortages driving higher costs today. Compounding the problem, incomes haven’t risen nearly as fast as housing costs.
Between 2019 and 2024, homeowner insurance costs rose 40.4% while coverage dropped, deductibles increased, and some areas became uninsurable, putting homeowners at major financial risk in the event of a natural disaster. Meanwhile, rents in the 50 largest U.S. cities increased an average of ~41% between 2020 and 2025, rising 150% faster than wages. Energy bills have been rising, too. The U.S. Energy Information Administration data shows a 26% increase since 2020 in the average price of residential electricity per kilowatt-hour, with electricity prices far outpacing inflation. A 2024 policy brief from the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy noted that low-income households in the U.S. had a median energy burden of 8.3% of their annual salary.
A study found that in one Arizona county, between May 2023 and September 2024, over 114 heat-related deaths occurred indoors. Over 30% were in mobile homes or RVs, a sign of the burden low-income households face when it comes to energy poverty and thermal safety. Winter Storm Fern in early 2026 impacted more than 40 states, led to over 100 deaths, and had a total economic impact exceeding $100 billion; 246 Texans tragically died as a result of Winter Storm Uri, 158 from hypothermia both indoors and outdoors and 19 from carbon monoxide poisoning related to the use of improper heating devices indoors or ice obstructing vents in gas powered heating equipment.
Taken together, these data sets point to a building stock, electrical grid, and built environment that is becoming more costly to own and operate, and that is still failing to meet the energy needs of owners and occupants.
Energy Codes are Central to Affordability
Energy codes emerged in the wake of the 1970s energy crisis, recognizing that building efficiency standards lower energy bills and provide public benefits. Even in today’s divided political environment, affordability remains bipartisan.
Energy codes can be a financially responsible economic policy, saving money in the short and long term by reducing monthly utility bills and mitigating energy price shocks. Instead, they are being framed as drivers of unaffordable housing, leading to delays and rollbacks in energy code implementation. These actions harm low-income and vulnerable households the most. While many of these rollbacks affect both commercial and residential construction, concerns about residential housing construction and the upfront costs of energy-saving upgrades largely drive them.
Progress toward better energy codes over the past decade is now mixed, with serious roadblocks and disappointing reversals. States that have historically led in energy and building code advances have faced serious setbacks, and some congressional proposals threaten to close the door on affordable ways to address climate change and energy constraints for future housing. For more on this policy shift, see our previous post in this series, “The False Economy of Weaker Energy Codes.”
Are Energy Codes Driving Upfront Costs?
The momentum against energy codes makes it tempting to conclude that they drive upfront, or first, costs in housing design and construction.
The claim that the 2021 International Energy Conservation Code (IECC) would add ~$30,000 to the cost of a new home conflicts with, and inflates, the findings of a commissioned analysis by Home Innovation Research Labs. Third-party reviews have repeatedly questioned that $30,000 figure and identified flaws in the analysis and findings.
A 2022 study conducted by the National Association of Home Builders and the National Multifamily Housing Council shows that regulation is responsible for 40.6% of the cost of multifamily housing development – noting that changes to building codes over the past 10 years are responsible for 11.1% of that increase, and claiming that energy-efficiency upgrades specifically are a driver “…without improving building safety or integrity.”
In fact, energy codes do improve building life-safety outcomes for residents, with joint research by PNNL, ORNL, NRL, and the U.S. DOE showing improved energy codes significantly reduce excess mortality during extreme weather events throughout climate zones across the U.S. Beyond this, energy codes are one of the only codes tested for cost-effectiveness and that pay for themselves. This cost-effectiveness is repeatedly affirmed for each cycle of the model energy code development when U.S. DOE completes the energy and economic evaluation of the most recent model energy code. NEEP has written further about these processes and the lengths energy codes go to reinforce affordable outcomes. Some researchers identify construction labor as a primary driver of cost increases beyond zoning, permitting, and interest rate impacts. A recent blog from Steven Winters Associates dives deeper, debunking claims that energy codes exacerbate housing affordability.
The 2030 IECC is Prioritizing a Narrow View of Affordability
The ICC Board recently published its final decisions on Scope and Intent for the 2030 code, which NBI wrote about earlier this year. This draft prescribes a cost-effectiveness approach that deviates from historical processes, misaligns with established industry methodologies, and prioritizes first-cost savings over lifecycle affordability. ICF has previously published a report discussing the omissions and limitations of simple payback cost-effectiveness methodologies. If unaltered for the 2030 IECC, this cost framework will prevent long-term energy-saving measures from being considered for adoption into the standard, increasing occupant exposure to extreme weather events, and increasing operational costs for future owners and occupants for decades to come. These outcomes directly conflict with the ICC’s commitment to ensuring “…safe, affordable, and sustainable communities and buildings…”.
There’s More to Affordability Than First-Costs
The previously cited research by the U.S. DOE and national laboratories showed that advanced energy codes reduce occupant risk and save lives during extreme weather events and grid disruptions, such as Winter Storm Uri in Texas and the deadly Pacific Northwest Heat Dome in 2021, by keeping interior temperatures habitable longer.
Insurance markets have been simmering in recent years as coastal flooding, increasingly intense hurricanes, tornadoes, windstorms, and wildfires expand their reach throughout the country. Recent research shows that insurance markets are absorbing these higher risk profiles, passing costs onto consumers, even those with lower risk, and pulling out of some regions entirely.
A 2025 NBI study shows that advanced codes, especially those that encourage decarbonization, can reduce criteria pollutant emissions and significantly lower cardiovascular and respiratory public health costs. Additional NBI-authored research has linked energy resilience codes to system-level electric-grid reliability and building occupant life safety and health. Seminal FEMA research has shown that building codes could save hundreds of billions of dollars in damages resulting from natural disasters.
Evidence for the full breadth of benefits of advanced energy codes is mounting. At best, compromises on energy codes for first-cost optimization prioritize first-cost reductions for builders at the expense of future owners and occupants. At worst, it drives housing inequality, decreases occupant health, and increases safety risks during extreme weather.
Refocusing the Affordability Lens
Rollbacks and delays to energy code adoption and requirements for simplified cost frameworks risk increasing energy burdens on low-income households, while also failing to address the root causes of rising home prices and cost drivers. These near-sighted, misplaced actions could exacerbate the affordability crisis rather than solve it.
When we look more closely, energy codes are central to the affordability conversation, offering a solution and an effective policy lever to insulate households from multiple financial stressors. Energy codes advance co-benefits across grid reliability, healthcare impacts, energy cost, occupant life safety, and decarbonization. These benefits are real and tangible, and it’s time to consider a more complete view of these life-cycle benefits in code cost-effectiveness and policy decision-making processes. Two recent NBI publications make the case for more holistic affordability accounting in energy code development processes. We propose integrating building energy resilience benefit valuation and propose a framework for including public health costs in energy code cost-effectiveness tests.
Incorporating standardized methods to calculate these costs and quantify relative co-benefits can help us move toward a full-scope consideration of housing affordability, one that doesn’t compromise long-term occupant benefits for first-cost savings.
A comprehensive approach to housing affordability would examine long-term outcomes and how effective design and construction can stabilize the U.S. economy. Housing, energy, and insurance markets, increase comfort and life safety, and improve health outcomes, outweighing potential increases in first-costs. These are investments worth making in our infrastructure and for our communities.
Related Posts
Author
by Tristan Grant, director of codes & policy