Profit margins for major electric companies in the United States have steadily increased since early 2021, according to the authors of the newly released report. While these companies retained an average of about 13 cents for every dollar collected from customers over the last few years, the latest figures show that their take-home profit is continuing to grow. The researchers state that “this profit share has been rising, up from around 13% on average between 2021 and 2024,” and highlight that early data for the current period “show margins running even higher, with an average of 14.6 percent among reporting utilities.” In simple terms, this means that a larger slice of a monthly electricity bill is being kept as pure profit for the company’s owners and investors instead of being spent on running the power system. While the costs to provide electricity are rising, the portion of the bill that the company keeps as its own reward is taking up a larger share of household budgets. The Energy & Policy Institute released its report “Paying for Their Profits: How Ratepayers Foot the Bill for Soaring Utility Profits” in March 2026. Authored by Daniel Tait, Sue Sturgis, and Shelby Green, the analysis tracks financial data from over 100 investor-owned utilities to reveal the significant role corporate returns play in driving up household electricity costs.
