Bloomberg News
Gas Tops $4 a Gallon in Every State for the First Time
![Customer pumps gas Customer pumps gas](/sites/default/files/styles/article_full_width_image/public/images/articles/gas-prices-1200.jpg)
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Gasoline pump prices have risen above $4 a gallon in all states in the U.S. for the first time ever as the last holdouts — Kansas, Oklahoma and Georgia — saw prices rise overnight, according to auto club AAA.
In California, the most expensive state, prices are averaging $6.021 a gallon, a fresh record, while five other states are above $5 a gallon. Ever-higher prices less than two weeks before the start of peak summer driving season are a burden to consumers and a potential challenge for President Joe Biden. His decisions to release crude oil from emergency reserves have translated to little relief at the pump, in part due to a lack of refining capacity to process that crude.
It’s too early to know how this latest increase will impact drivers or their summer travel plans, said Ellen Edmonds, a spokesperson for AAA. Historically, people still take planned trips, but find other ways to offset the higher prices at the pump, Edmonds told Bloomberg in an email.
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The burden of high pump prices falls most heavily on lower-income families who spend a bigger portion of their earnings on fuel, and they are less likely to drive electric cars, said Mark Finley, a fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, in an interview earlier this month.
The average U.S. household will spend about $450 more on an inflation-adjusted basis for gasoline this year compared with last year, according to a government forecast this month. But higher wages mean gasoline expenditures as a percentage of disposable income remain only slightly above the average since 2015, the report said.
A handful of financial and physical metrics — including low fuel stockpiles — suggest pump prices are likely to rise further this summer.
Average U.S. diesel prices are now $5.573 a gallon, also a record, AAA records show.
— With assistance from Sophie Caronello.
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