May 9, 2026
If you're a driver with a gas-powered vehicle, you've no doubt been feeling the pain at the pump lately, with gas prices jumping more than 50% since the end of February.
But for those Americans with long commutes — or who drive for a living — those high prices can mean a serious cash crunch. For some, it might mean having to figure out a new way to get to work, or even reconsidering where they work and live altogether.
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Gas prices have spiked since the Iran war began on Feb. 28, when the average price of U.S. regular gasoline sat at $2.98 a gallon (1). According to AAA, on May 7 it was $4.56 — an increase of 53% (2).
"Supercommuters" feel the pinch
Researchers say there might be more Americans with "super commutes" since the pandemic. According to a 2024 study by researchers at Stanford University and INRIX that looked at the 10 largest cities in the U.S., the number of people making commutes more than 75 miles had increased 32% since the pandemic (3).
And while working from home spiked at the start of the pandemic, many Americans are back in the office. Nicholas Bloom, one of the authors of the Stanford study, told the Wall Street Journal that while working from home grew in 2020, it dropped from 2021 to 2023, and flattened out from 2024 on (4).
However, Bloom also told the WSJ that there has recently been an increase in Americans' work-from-home days: from 24.7% of days in February 2026 to 26.9% of days in March 2026.
If you are a hybrid worker, it makes sense to push for as many work-from-home days as possible while gas prices remain elevated. But for the nearly 63% of Americans who work fully on-site, according to the WSJ and the Stanford study, there may be no choice but to gas up and head to work.
Graduate student Nicole Smith told the WSJ that her commutes from Fredericksburg, Va., to Washington, D.C., to attend her graduate program have meant $200 more in gas costs a month, compared to earlier in 2026. She said she is trying to manage the hike in costs by restricting recreation: "less fun activities, less weekends out, less traveling."
In California, drivers are consistently facing higher gas prices than the national average. According to the California Energy Commission, it "costs more on average than other parts of the United States" to buy gas in California because the state is "isolated" in terms of how fuel is transported there; the state also mandates a special formulation of gas that burns cleaner, and is more expensive; and there are environmental program fees in addition to local, state and federal taxes (5).
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Refineries in the state have also closed, impacting local supply, the New York Times reported (6).
While the national average on May 7 was $4.56 a gallon, in California, the state average was $6.17 (7).
Carolyn Staats, who works as a physical therapist's aide, told the Wall Street Journal that her four-day-a-week, 200-mile round-trip commute from Los Banos, Calif., to the Bay area was costing an extra $220 a month.
"I've had to budget my money more, where instead of saving $150 for gas on a two-week basis it's now $260 — that extra $110, I could have used it toward my groceries or toward other bills," she told the WSJ (4).
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A recent analysis by New York Federal Reserve economists found that there was a split in gasoline spending in March between higher income and lower income households (8).
While high income households increased their actual spending on gas the most, their consumption of gas remained almost unchanged. Low income households, meanwhile, decreased their consumption of gas, "but still saw sharply increased" spending, "because of the rise in gas prices," the economists found.
The analysis also compares the recent spike in gas prices to the price shock of the spring and summer of 2022 amid the Russia-Ukraine war, noting that the same pattern emerged then, but that "the magnitudes of the gaps [...] were noticeably smaller than the corresponding gaps we see in March 2026."
With the current price shock, while high income households "have reduced real gas consumption only modestly and increased gasoline spending considerably compared with 2023," low income households have "increased spending by much less and decreased real consumption by much more, potentially by carpooling or substituting to public transit where available."
A Bank of America analysis also found that lower income households decreased their discretionary spending — that is, "spending outside of groceries, utilities and gasoline" — in March as gas prices spiked (9).
Article Sources
We rely only on vetted sources and credible third-party reporting. For details, see our ethics and guidelines.
AAA (1),(2),(7); Stanford University (3); The Wall Street Journal (4); California Energy Commission (5); The New York Times (6); Federal Reserve Bank of New York (8); Bank of America (9)
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Rebecca Payne has more than a decade of experience editing and producing both local and national daily newspapers. She's worked on the Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail, Metro, Canada's National Observer, the Virginian-Pilot and Daily Press.
