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For the first time – I think, maybe ever – the record high gasoline price trend has me paying over $4 a gallon. Just yesterday the price per gallon here where I live in Memphis was still in the high $3 range.
This sharp increase occursof course, in part thanks to the fallout from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which prompted the United States, among other actions, to announce a ban on American imports of Russian oil on Tuesday. “They will go up” President Biden said asked by reporters about soaring gasoline prices on Tuesday, hours after the ban was announced. “I can’t do much at the moment. Russia is responsible. To be more precise, he might not think he can do much now. But there are some easy steps you can follow.
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Why is gas over $4?
The increase is partly explained by record inflation, which the United States was already facing even before the Russian-Ukrainian invasion. To compound the problem: there is now a widespread tendency to ignore Russian oil, as we see with the ban announced by Biden. This essentially takes millions of barrels of oil out of circulation.
Any increase is, of course, quite significant for an average consumer, since gasoline prices represent 3.4% of household spending. That is to say when the prices go up at the pump? It’s really the equivalent of a tax increase which means less money for a consumer to spend on other things.
As we said, however, there are ways to mitigate this increase. For starters, finding the lowest gas prices around you at any given time is a fairly simple task. Apps like GasBuddy makes it easy to find real-time gas prices in a given location and quickly see where to find the lowest figure. Additionally, you can sort results by things like gas station brand as well as payment method.
GasBuddy’s other filtering choices include whether the gas station has restrooms available and whether the location is open 24/7 or not. Once you’ve made your choice, you can focus on ratings, reviews, and more.
The app is available for both iOS devicesas well as on the Google Play Store.
What is the highest gas price ever recorded?
An app like GasBuddy is also extremely important, in light of the gasoline price record that was broken on Tuesday, March 8. Tuesday’s US national average gasoline price of $4.17 (according to AAA data) is the highest on record, but not on an inflation-adjusted basis.
Moreover, this record should be broken again soon. Consider: The $4.17 figure was up from $4.07 on Monday and $3.61 the previous week.
Millions of people, unsurprisingly, follow this trend quite closely. Google said this week that more people used the search engine to search for “gas prices” than ever before.
Gas prices today
According to data from GasBuddy, the previous all-time high for national average gas prices in the United States was $4,103. And that was delayed in 2008, during the Great Recession. On March 8, however, the national average price for gasoline in the United States reached $4.173, according to AAA data.
By the way, this is an average covering the whole country. That is, prices may be higher in some places and lower in others. In California alone on Tuesday, for example, the average gas price reached $5.444 per AAA.
“In addition to setting a new record,” the new data from GasBuddy continues, “the national average hits its largest 7-day peak of 49.1 cents per gallon, eclipsing the weekly rise of 49.0 cents after the Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
“Many gas price records were broken due to Russia’s war against Ukraine, which prompted Western countries to impose severe sanctions on Russia, curbing Russian crude oil exports to the world market .”
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