Energy

Higher-Income Americans Have Been Cashing In On Green Home Subsidies Under Biden

(Photo by Melanie Conner/Getty Images)

Daily Caller News Foundation logo
Owen Klinsky Contributor
Font Size:

Higher-income Americans took home the lion’s share of green energy tax credits for residential items deployed by the Biden administration in tax year 2023, according to Internal Revenue Service (IRS) data analyzed by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Around $5.5 billion of the approximately $8.4 billion in tax credit claims doled out for residential energy tax credits came from filers earning more than $100,000 annually, with six-figure-plus earners over three times more likely to claim the credits, according to the IRS data. Residential energy tax credits are composed of two parts, “energy efficient home improvement credits” for purchases like upgraded heat pumps and air conditioners and “residential clean energy credits” for purchases like solar panels and batteries, both of which were significantly expanded under the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), according to the U.S. Department of Treasury. (RELATED: Robinette Hood: Here’s How Biden’s EV Agenda Will Take From The Poor And Give To The Rich)

“Americans making an average or below-average income don’t have extra room in the budget for electric vehicles and solar panels or to invest in green energy companies,” Preston Brashers, a research fellow for tax policy in The Heritage Foundation’s Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget, told the DCNF. “Many everyday Americans can barely afford groceries and rent, let alone Energy Star-rated homes filled with energy-efficient appliances.”

The IRA is President Joe Biden’s signature climate bill, which allocated $370 billion for green initiatives out of the $750 billion in new federal spending that it authorized. As part of this spending, the IRA expanded energy efficient home improvement credits from 10% of project costs to 30%, with varying limits based on the type of purchase, and expanded the residential clean energy credit to include battery storage systems, according to the U.S. Energy Communities Interagency Working Group.

“These credits are overwhelmingly benefiting middle-class families, and nearly half of the families who claimed one or both credits had incomes of less than $100,000 in 2023,” a spokesperson for the Treasury Department told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “More broadly, the Inflation Reduction Act is delivering investment to left-behind places communities at the forefront of fossil fuel energy production and those that have benefited least from the economic growth of the past few decades.”

While the Treasury is correct that just under half of the families who claimed credits had incomes of less than $100,000, those families claimed far fewer total tax credit dollars, with filers making over $100,000 claiming twice as many tax credit dollars for residential clean energy and around 65% more tax credit dollars for home energy efficiency, according to the IRS data. Moreover, 75.7% of filers earn less than $100,000, meaning those making over $100,000 a year were twice as likely to take advantage of residential clean energy credits and four times as likely to take advantage of home energy efficiency credits.

While the White House claims these green technologies will save low-income families money, the high upfront costs can be prohibitive. The average cost of a residential solar panel system in the U.S. is roughly $18,600 in 2024, falling to approximately $13,000 after a 30% federal solar tax credit is applied, according to Forbes.

The solar credit was first created under former President George W. Bush’s 2005 Energy Policy Act and was expanded under former President Barack Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association. The solar credit is nonrefundable, meaning if someone does not make enough money and their tax refund exceeds their tax bill, they do not receive the difference from the IRS, NerdWallet reported.

At the same time, the Biden administration has been creating regulations on key appliances like air conditioners, refrigerators, water heaters and furnaces, that are set to increase expenses for the average American home by more than $9,000 due to compliance efforts.

“This is all truly an indictment of the environmental justice narrative that is used to sell these types of programs and push progressive lifestyle choices onto everyday people,” O.H. Skinner, executive director of the Alliance for Consumers and the former solicitor general of Arizona, told the DCNF in reference to the residential tax credit program. “The left is aware of this, and in turn says that it is the emissions reductions that benefit the poor, even if that means we have to subsidize the rich… That galling message is cold comfort to most consumers, who see their taxes go up, their electric bills go up, the costs of goods go up… and their household appliance costs go through the roof, while high earners cash tax credits for their fancy progressive lifestyle choices.” (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: GOP Lawmakers Demand Answers From Biden Admin On Massive Grants For ‘Environmental Justice’ Program)

A study published in July by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that the majority of the $47 billion in green tax credits claimed between 2006 and 2021 went to households in the top 20% of incomes earned.

The Biden administration’s climate-green push comes as many Americans are struggling to pay their bills, with both credit card balances that are more than 60 days overdue and revolving balances reaching their highest point in the first quarter of 2024 since the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia began tracking 12 years ago. Overall prices have risen more than 20% since Biden took office in January 2021, with electricity prices having increased over 30%, according to FRED.

“It is clear that the tax credits in the Inflation Reduction Act primarily benefit wealthier Americans,” Ben Lieberman, senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, told the DCNF. “The regressive nature of these provisions flies in the face of the [Biden administration’s] environmental justice rhetoric.”

The IRS deferred to the Treasury Department, and the EPA did not respond to a request for comment from the DCNF.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel