“Blakeman: New York electric bills are "70 percent higher than the national average," the result of "48 rate increases" under Hochul”
Directionally right, slightly stale, and measuring prices rather than bills. The Empire Center's August 2026 Energy Data Bulletin, built on EIA data, puts New York's average residential price at 29.93 cents per kWh in May 2026 - third-highest in the nation and 62.3 percent above the U.S. average, up 12.1 percent year over year. The 70 percent figure was accurate earlier in the cycle: an Empire Center release dated May 14, 2026 carried exactly that headline. Two caveats. First, this is price per kilowatt-hour, not the monthly bill; New York households consume less electricity than the national average, so the bill gap is narrower than the rate gap. Second, the "48 rate increases" count is not sourced to any public tally, and Blakeman's framing of "one every month she's been governor" does not fit the arithmetic - Hochul took office in August 2021, about 60 months before these remarks.