US federal resource allocations are inconsistent with concentrations of energy poverty

Recent data from the United States (US) Energy Information Administration reveals that nearly one in three households in the US report experiencing energy poverty, and this number is only expected to rise. Federal assistance programs exist, but allocations across states have been nearly static since 1984, while the distribution of energy poverty is dynamic in location and time. We produce a novel machine learning approach based on sociodemographic and geographical information to estimate energy burden in each US census tract for 2015 and 2020. Our analysis confirms that average household energy burdens increased, and the range of households suffering energy poverty broadened. We provide an optimized allocation structure to urge policy makers to revise the distribution of funds to better match assistance needs.