Despite nominal price increases, electricity is more affordable in terms of labor. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) tracks average electricity prices over time in nominal terms. The chart below shows the U.S. average price per kWh from 1980 to the present—rising from about 6 cents per kWh in 1980 to 17.6 cents today. To convert the money price into a time price, we compared the US blue-collar hourly compensation rate for each year, indexing 1980 as the baseline (1.0). Another way to understand electricity prices is to ask: how many kWh can you buy with one hour of work?