Entergy's Focus on the Second Quintile

摘要

The states that Entergy serves are among the few that suffered increases in poverty rates for the past four years. Says Entergy's Kay Arnold, vice president for public affairs, "We started out poorer, so our states got sicker faster" when the national economy went south last fall. "One of the biggest issues we face is that there is a whole new group of people whorndon't know how to use the system, and the system is not necessarily built to incorporate them," says Arnold. She describes this group in the "second quintile"-customers who have been getting by without assistance from government or utility programs but who are poised to slip into the lowest-income quintile. "They don't have any history of working with social or utility programs," Arnold adds. Moreover, they are under tremendous pressure because they don't qualify for any government assistance. "So, we're going to have to do a much better job at communicating with that group."