Water affordability affects low-income US communities

Millions of people in the United States, especially in poor and minority communities, are at risk of losing access to affordable drinking water as the costs of upgrading aging infrastructure and droughts send water prices soaring across many cities.

"Water rates have been increasing over the last 20 years, if not longer," Casey Wichman, an economist at the Georgia Institute of Technology, told China Daily.

In research conducted with economist Diego Cardoso from Purdue University in 2020, Wichman noted that the cost of water services in the US is rising three times faster than inflation. In addition, water infrastructure will require an investment of more than $1 trillion over the next 20 to 25 years.