Utility bills are now exceeding mortgage payments in West Virginia, even though Trump promised deep cuts

The Associated Press’ video report paints a bleak picture out of West Virginia, where utility bills are not just rising, but in some cases overtaking rents, crushing small businesses, and blowing past what many people can realistically pay.

That is what makes the story hit so hard. This is happening in a state long tied to coal, a state where many residents were told again and again that energy abundance would mean cheaper living. Instead, the people speaking in the AP report sound trapped inside the opposite reality.

Some are paying more for electricity than for commercial rent.

Others say utility costs are pushing them out of business altogether.

And hanging over all of it is a political promise that clearly has not landed the way many people hoped it would. President Donald Trump promised deep cuts to energy costs. The people in this report are looking at their bills and asking where those cuts went.

A State Rich In Energy, But Not Relief

One of the sharpest tensions in the Associated Press report is this: West Virginia is energy-rich, but many people there are living like energy is a luxury.

That contradiction runs through nearly every interview.

Anthony Crihfield Jones, who owns JCD Bargain and Trading, told the AP that one building alone cost him $1,218.67 in utility charges. Later in the report, Jones said he had already shut down two stores because he could no longer afford all the costs stacking up at once — gas, electricity, water, sewer, and rent.

His frustration sounded especially pointed because he was not speaking like a political opponent of the administration.

In fact, Jones said he loves the current administration. But he also said he keeps hearing “drill, baby, drill” and asking the obvious question: if all this digging is happening, why are his bills still so high?

That is a hard question to shrug off.

Because when people are told more domestic energy production will lower costs, and then their power bill ends up eating more of their paycheck than before, trust begins to crack.

When Utility Bills Rise Above Rent And Mortgage

The AP report is full of numbers that sound almost backwards.

Philip Moulton, who owns Ravenswood Arts, said his small 1,900-square-foot gallery has a monthly power bill of $700 to $800 even though he keeps the temperature low. His commercial rent, he said, is only $600.

That means the electricity is costing him $150 to $200 more than the space itself.

That is not a normal business equation.

And once a utility bill passes rent, the whole shape of affordability changes. A power bill is not optional. It is not something you can haggle down the way a supplier invoice might be. It is there, month after month, whether business is booming or not.

Moulton told the AP he even called the power company asking whether there was some kind of program to help him, explaining that he is a 71-year-old artist trying to help the community through his gallery. He said the answer he got was basically no.

That part of the report feels especially brutal because it strips away the idea that maybe people just are not asking for help. Some are asking. The help still is not there.

The same pressure showed up on the residential side too. The AP report includes the broader context that some families in West Virginia are now seeing monthly utility burdens top what they pay for housing. And once that happens, the bills stop feeling like a cost-of-living problem and start feeling like a survival problem.

Small Businesses Say The Bills Are Breaking Them

The report is strongest when it simply lets people describe what the bills have done to their lives.

Heather Santee, a former bakery owner, told the Associated Press that the high electric bills made her struggle with pretty much everything else. Once she fell behind, she said, she could not dig out of the hole.

Every time she paid a big lump sum, the next bill came in even higher.

That cycle is what makes debt from utility costs so punishing. It is not just the size of one bill. It is the way one large bill starts wrecking everything around it.

Santee said she had been preparing for Valentine’s Day, one of the kinds of holiday stretches that could have brought in the money she needed. She described it as a period when she could have had $700 to $1,000 days. But her business shut down on the 12th before she could reach that holiday push.

That closure cost more than a dream.

She told the AP that at one point she had five employees, though she was down to three for the winter when the bakery closed. Those workers lost their jobs the day the shop shut down, and her household lost its only source of income at the time.

That is the ripple effect utility costs can have when they stop being manageable. It is not just one owner absorbing the pain. It is workers, tenants, customers, and nearby businesses feeling it too.

And Santee’s line near the end of the report may be one of the saddest. Everybody says they need little bakeries and little small businesses, she said, but those are the very businesses getting hit the hardest.

She is right. These are usually the businesses people claim to love in the abstract, right up until the costs of keeping them alive become impossible.

Coal Politics And A Pricey Reality

Pastor Caitlin Ware from Sandyville United Methodist Church gave the AP one of the most openly political critiques in the report.

She pointed out that West Virginia has decided it is going to run on coal at least through 2040, even as residents are staring at electric bills in the $1,300 to $1,500 range. She also argued that people do not get to opt out of electricity or water the way they might cut other spending.

That is one reason this story lands differently than, say, a complaint about luxury prices. Nobody can just decide not to have electricity that month.

Ware also took direct aim at the symbolic politics around coal and Trump. She said she found it fascinating that politicians and supporters hand out “friend of a coal miner” trophies while coal miners themselves are dealing with black lung, poor water quality, hunger, school closures, and soaring electric bills.

Her question – “where’s the trophy for us?” – is pointed, but it works because it cuts straight through the branding.

The political image says one thing. The bill on the kitchen table says another.

That does not mean coal is the only reason prices are high. The AP report makes clear the underlying utility picture is more complicated than that, and the video notes that West Virginia’s reliance on coal-fired plants is one important part of the problem. But politically, the contradiction is still glaring: a state culturally tied to energy production is not enjoying cheap energy.

And for residents who were promised relief, that gap between message and reality is becoming harder to ignore.

Campgrounds, Churches, And Galleries Are Feeling It Too

The pain described in the Associated Press video is not limited to one industry.

Eric Pinson, who manages an RV campsite, said that after the first year, he and others looked at the electric bill and the rent and realized the business was not going to work unless they raised rents. He said that created conflict with local customers who had been used to a certain kind of affordable camping setup for years.

That shows how utility inflation travels.

A higher electric bill for the operator becomes a higher rent for the camper. Then the customer gets angry, not always because the owner is gouging, but because the whole cost structure has quietly changed.

Ware said the church is seeing electric bills of $1,300 to $1,500, and she added that businesses are locking up and closing. That sounds dramatic, but the AP report backs it up with example after example.

Jones is shrinking. Santee already closed. Moulton is being squeezed. Pinson had to raise prices. And each one describes the same basic problem in a different way: utility costs have gotten big enough to start steering major life and business decisions.

Once that happens across enough storefronts, a downtown starts thinning out.

That is how a utility story becomes a community story.

Trump’s Promise Is Now Part Of The Frustration

The Associated Press included a clip of President Trump declaring a national energy emergency and repeating his well-known push to “drill, baby, drill.”

That slogan is politically potent because it sounds simple. Produce more. Lower prices. Help ordinary people.

The people in this report are living through the uncomfortable follow-up, which is that prices rose instead.

That is why the title of the AP piece matters so much. This is not just a report about expensive utility bills. It is a report about expensive utility bills in the face of a promise that said they would fall.

Jones framed that contradiction bluntly when he said, “They’re drillin’. Why’s my bill the same?”

That may be the cleanest line in the whole report.

It is not ideological. It is practical. People do not live inside slogans. They live inside monthly bills.

And when those bills keep going up, political patience starts running thin even in places that strongly backed Trump. That does not mean everyone in West Virginia is suddenly turning against him. But it does mean the affordability promise is colliding with a harsh real-world test.

The Bills Are Hitting The Ones Least Able To Absorb Them

Another thing the AP report makes clear is that these costs are punishing the people and businesses with the smallest margins.

Older residents. Artists. Churches. Campgrounds. Antique stores. Small retail shops. Bakeries. People trying to hold on in places that do not have much financial cushion to begin with.

That may be the most painful part of the whole story.

If power costs spike in a wealthy region, people complain and adjust. In a state like West Virginia, where many families and shop owners were already balancing on a narrow edge, the extra weight can collapse the whole structure.

Ware said people cannot afford groceries. Jones said he cannot afford to be the “left behind state” anymore. Santee described the emotional hit of walking past the space where her bakery used to be.

Those are not abstract complaints. They are people describing what happens when a bill stops being manageable and starts deciding the future for them.

The Associated Press report leaves little doubt about the mood: anger, disbelief, exhaustion, and a growing sense that the people paying these prices are not the ones being protected by the system.

For many in West Virginia, the promise was lower costs.

What showed up instead was a power bill bigger than the rent.