Gas Prices & Christmas — Ho, Ho, Ho, Happy Holiday Travel

While prices vary state to state and city to city, it appears — says AAA — that gas prices are dropping. And they’re dropping quite rapidly. In fact, the gas price gurus at GasBuddy think the nationwide average for a gallon of gas might hit $3 by Christmas.

As it is now, GasBuddy says the price of a gallon of gas is where it was when Russia invaded Ukraine. That average price was $3.50.

Duke University economist, Emma Rasiel said the dropping prices probably fueled the huge profits realized by businesses as shoppers overwhelmed stores during Thanksgiving weekend.

“People are realizing that they might be back to spending $50 to fill their tank instead of $80,” she said. “It is the main signal consumers notice on inflation. It is the one thing they are likely to track, how much it has gone up or down, because every week they need to fill up their car.”

While the dropping price of gas is good news, inflation on other levels continue to go up. Prices for gasoline are primarily dropping because people quit driving and because oil refineries have started back up after prolonged shutdowns for maintenance.

As it stands now, some parts of the country are doing better than others. GasBuddy’s Patrick De Haan said for example, California is still averaging $5 per gallon for regular.

“This is a pretty delicately held-together price decline,” he noted.

Meanwhile, dropping prices or not, a lot of us are still staying conservative when it comes to driving. We’re continuing to keep all of our travels and errands to one trip. Along with that we are driving slower and only partially filling our tanks.

In other words — says Duke’s survey head, Joanne Hsu — we are not all that confident things have changed. “Even though prices of gas have come down, prices of other things are still high,” she said. “There is a feeling of tremendous uncertainty.”

Source link: The Washington Post — https://wapo.st/3iAf0Xf