Even before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, U.S. gas prices were rising rapidly — and are now marching toward a national average of $4 per gallon or higher in the coming months with the crisis showing no signs of abating.
“I wish that we've peaked. I think we're a long way from that. Unfortunately, on an average year, gas prices go up 25 to as much as 75 cents a gallon between March and Memorial day,” Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, told Yahoo Finance Live this week.. By comparison, the average U.S. gas price was about $2.65 a year ago.
Los Angeles and several other areas across the Southland follow the trend of topping record high averages. The average price for regular gas has now hit $4.89 a gallon in the Los Angeles area. That's the 22nd record high in the last 25 days. It's also 10 cents more than last week and about $1.14 more than a year ago.At one Chevron gas station in Los Angeles county, customers are paying $6.25 per gallon over the weekend, causing them to dig deeper into their pockets at the pump.
However, a defining characteristic of the current inflationary environment is consumers that complain, but ultimately pay for goods and services that have reset at higher levels. As a result, some California drivers are resigned to the surge in gas, if only because of personal or professional driving needs.“My car pays my bills because if not I can’t get to my work so it's kind of the cost of doing business,” Alejandro Vazquez, a Los Angeles County resident, told Yahoo.
But California's driving-heavy culture, and the demand it creates, separates it from most other states — along with other factors.
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