Heat Deaths on the Rise

Aug 19, 2024

The number of heat-related deaths in the U.S. increased from about 1,600 in 2021 to 2,300 in 2023, according to the Centers for Disease Control. This trend is only likely to continue, given the pattern of increasingly warm annual temperatures occurring in recent decades.

As a result, some people in a few places like New Orleans, Phoenix and Tempe have succeeded in getting local politicians to impose maximum indoor temperature standards in rental housing, according to Reuters. Yet while every state requires landlords to maintain existing air conditioning units, Reuters found that none required landlords to provide air-conditioning to their tenants.

Landlord associations, of course, are doing everything they can to prevent the passage of laws requiring landlords to ensure tenants are not subject to dangerous heat. They’ve succeeding in stopping laws from being passed in places like California, Texas, and Hot Springs, Arkansas—hardly places where one can count on cool temperatures year around!

The landlord groups try to make it sound like they’re looking out for tenants, by saying spending money on air-conditioning would require them to raise rents. Many people live paycheck-to-paycheck due to the bosses paying low wages. Not surprisingly, a Boston University study in 2022 of 115 metro areas in the U.S. found that households with no air-conditioning are most often occupied by low-income residents, primarily renters.

What’s wrong with this picture? Somehow, landlords, utility companies, and bosses employing workers manage to find no shortage of profits from year-to-year, and the landlords find politicians willing to accept their excuses and not step on their toes.

This is capitalism’s answer to rising temperatures likely due to climate change. Let those who can’t afford housing with air-conditioning deal with the heat themselves, and if some die from heat-related causes—oh, well! One more reason this sick, decrepit system needs to go!