{"id":39617,"date":"2022-06-06T23:37:17","date_gmt":"2022-06-06T23:37:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/californians-sound-off-on-high-gas-prices\/"},"modified":"2022-06-06T23:37:17","modified_gmt":"2022-06-06T23:37:17","slug":"californians-sound-off-on-high-gas-prices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/californians-sound-off-on-high-gas-prices\/","title":{"rendered":"Californians sound off on high gas prices"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>LOS ANGELES &#8211; It wasn&#8217;t all that long ago that filling up a big gas tank cost less than $ 100 in California.<\/p>\n<p>Not anymore.  The statewide average for regular gas is currently $ 6.34 per gallon, more than two dollars higher than a year ago, meaning that anyone putting 16 gallons or more in their car is paying over $ 100.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s terrible,&#8221; Lisa, a driver in California, told Yahoo Finance.  &#8220;I can&#8217;t go visit my grandkids in Ventura County because of the gas prices, and then I work far away.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Some parts of the Golden State are being affected more than others: One station in Mendocino, north of San Francisco along the coast, recently recorded prices a few cents away from $ 10.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"caas-figure\">\n<div style=\"\">\n<div>\n<div class=\"caas-img-container caas-img-loader noheight\"><noscript><img alt=\"Gas prices in California.  (AAA)\" src=\"https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/ny\/api\/res\/1.2\/DCoMo.wwjD_Di8QbCebC4A--\/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTcwNQ--\/https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/os\/creatr-uploaded-images\/2022-06\/dd3f7410-e58f-11ec-b76e-9bd7c55f7f8d\" class=\"caas-img\"\/><\/noscript><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><figcaption class=\"caption-collapse\">Gas prices in California.  (AAA)<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<h2><strong>&#8216;My tank doesn&#8217;t get filled up as much as it used to&#8217;<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Surging gas prices are taking a bite out of consumers&#8217; budgets, with the typical US household spending $ 4,800 on gas at an annual rate &#8211; a 70% jump from a year ago, economist Ed Yardeni noted in a LinkedIn post about his research.<\/p>\n<p>The pain at the pump is even worse in California.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Since I&#8217;m on a budget, I do drive a little bit less,&#8221; Alberto Bertrand, a college student in Southern California, told Yahoo Finance.  &#8220;My tank doesn&#8217;t get filled up as much as it used to. So now when I would go cruising either down the beach or anything like that, I stay away from that now.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Crude oil costs account for slightly more than half of the pump price, according to the US Energy Information Administration.<\/p>\n<p>Another hurdle for some drivers as structural forces lead to elevated prices is that their wages are not keeping up with the gas price inflation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur minimum wage isn&#8217;t meeting what the prices are for gas,&#8221; Andy Garcia, who drives for Instacart, told Yahoo Finance. &#8220;So &#8230; say you work minimum wage somewhere, you work 6 hour shifts maybe part time or you work full time 8 hours, and you&#8217;re making minimum wage.  What you&#8217;re making in one day is what you&#8217;re going to end up spending for gas to fill up your tank. &#8220;<\/p>\n<p>And while California sits above $ 6 per gallon on average, a total of ten US states now average $ 5 or higher.  JPMorgan recently asserted that the nationwide average &#8211; currently $ 4.86 per gallon &#8211; could surpass $ 6.20 per gallon by August.<\/p>\n<p><button class=\"link caas-button collapse-button\" aria-label=\"\" title=\"\" data-ylk=\"elm:readmore;slk:Story continues\">Story continues<\/button><\/p>\n<figure class=\"caas-figure\">\n<div style=\"\">\n<div>\n<div class=\"caas-img-container caas-img-loader noheight\"><img class=\"caas-img caas-lazy has-preview\" alt=\"Gas prices, by state, across the US (AAA)\" src=\"https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/ny\/api\/res\/1.2\/Sp1K46WRwR.sZDFxzyL4.w--\/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTcwNQ--\/https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/os\/creatr-uploaded-images\/2022-06\/26683e60-e590-11ec-afaa-cdaddfb49a53\"\/><noscript><img alt=\"Gas prices, by state, across the US (AAA)\" src=\"https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/ny\/api\/res\/1.2\/Sp1K46WRwR.sZDFxzyL4.w--\/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTcwNQ--\/https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/os\/creatr-uploaded-images\/2022-06\/26683e60-e590-11ec-afaa-cdaddfb49a53\" class=\"caas-img\"\/><\/noscript><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><figcaption class=\"caption-collapse\">Gas prices, by state, across the US (AAA)<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<h2><strong>&#8216;If you have a high performance car &#8230;&#8217;<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>More pain could be in store for drivers as the summer travel season kicks off, and some drivers are grappling with whether to continue putting premium gas in their car.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Check your owner&#8217;s manual,&#8221; AAA National Public Relations Manager Andrew Gross told Yahoo Finance.  &#8220;If you have a high performance car, &#8230; [it] will require premium and then you&#8217;re kind of stuck, but if you&#8217;re just using premium [because] you think it&#8217;s cool, you&#8217;re just wasting money.  I mean, you can easily put plain old, regular gas in your car and you will be just fine. &#8220;<\/p>\n<p>As of early 2022, roughly 16.5 million US drivers filled their cars with premium, according to AAA.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"caas-figure\">\n<div style=\"\">\n<div>\n<div class=\"caas-img-container caas-img-loader noheight\"><img class=\"caas-img caas-lazy has-preview\" alt=\"Gas prices in Santa Monica, California on May 23, 2022. REUTERS \/ David Swanson\" src=\"https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/ny\/api\/res\/1.2\/vbjngieysmYgf7eRo8hSVw--\/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTcwNQ--\/https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/os\/creatr-uploaded-images\/2022-05\/3a77a220-dc61-11ec-8bf7-2d1af9819699\"\/><noscript><img alt=\"Gas prices in Santa Monica, California on May 23, 2022. REUTERS \/ David Swanson\" src=\"https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/ny\/api\/res\/1.2\/vbjngieysmYgf7eRo8hSVw--\/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTcwNQ--\/https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/os\/creatr-uploaded-images\/2022-05\/3a77a220-dc61-11ec-8bf7-2d1af9819699\" class=\"caas-img\"\/><\/noscript><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><figcaption class=\"caption-collapse\">Gas prices in Santa Monica, California on May 23, 2022. REUTERS \/ David Swanson<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Gross added that he &#8220;cannot imagine that [those drivers] still are.  But then again, a lot of people are under the mistaken belief that premium is better for their car. &#8220;<\/p>\n<p>For Garcia, who drives a Honda CRV, it&#8217;s worth paying for premium.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The difference is 30 cents, 40 cents for 10 gallons &#8211; I&#8217;m paying $ 4 difference,&#8221; he explained.  &#8220;I don&#8217;t really see it that bad because if the premium would make my car last longer and it&#8217;ll give me more mileage. I feel like those $ 4 is worth it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><em>Dani Romero is a reporter for Yahoo Finance.  Follow her on Twitter: <\/em><a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/daniromerotv\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:@daniromerotv\" class=\"link \"><em>@daniromerotv<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Follow Yahoo Finance on <\/em><a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/YahooFinance\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Twitter\" class=\"link \"><em>Twitter<\/em><\/a><em>, <\/em><em>Instagram<\/em><em>, <\/em><em>YouTube<\/em><em>, <\/em><em>Facebook<\/em><em>, <\/em><em>Flipboard<\/em><em>and <\/em><em>LinkedIn<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><script async defer src=\"https:\/\/platform.instagram.com\/en_US\/embeds.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>LOS ANGELES &#8211; It wasn&#8217;t all that long ago that filling up a big gas tank cost less than $ 100 in California. Not anymore. The statewide average for regular gas is currently $ 6.34 per gallon, more than two dollars higher than a year ago, meaning that anyone putting 16 gallons or more in &hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"> <a class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/californians-sound-off-on-high-gas-prices\/\"> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Californians sound off on high gas prices<\/span> Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/ny\/api\/res\/1.2\/Rxe8GXfZd14mLVnMLbz.dw--\/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTEyMDA7aD02NTk-\/https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/os\/creatr-uploaded-images\/2022-06\/46d02460-e590-11ec-93df-34a1737b3ae8","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39617"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39617\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}