Gas Prices Drop Under $3 A Gallon For Most Americans

The price of gas is falling across America. Now that the new year is underway, the national average price for a gallon of regular gas was at $3.09 this week, according to AAA. But that average takes into account the high prices that folks in California, Hawaii and Washington are paying. Meanwhile, most people in the U.S. are now paying less than $3.00 per gallon, as Axios reports.

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This forecasts what Axios calls a “shockingly normal” economy in 2024, which could see a welcome reprieve from inflation in American housing costs as well as other essentials, among them the price of gasoline. Axios cites AAA gasoline data taken less than a month ago, when gas prices were about 15 cents higher. Going further back, gas cost around 13 cents more at this same time last year.

But not everyone in the country has been lucky enough to see lower prices at the pump. California had the highest average at $4.71, and some counties in the Golden State saw prices as high as $5.70 per gallon. Hawaii had higher averages, too, and Kauai saw prices go as high as $5.20. Those prices recall the outrageous highs of 2022, when the national average was $5 per gallon, as Reuters reports.

Still, analysts say that gasoline could get even cheaper across the entire country in the next few weeks. Per CBS News:

“There’s a window of opportunity over the next six weeks” for the national average to dip below three bucks a gallon, which last occurred in May of 2021, GasBuddy.com analyst Patrick De Haan said Tuesday, noting that a nickel drop is all that’s needed.

In fact, that dip has already happened across much of the country, with the exception of states including Hawaii, California, Washington, where average pump prices are topping four bucks a gallon, according to a tally updated daily by AAA.

Gas prices have spent the last 10 days bouncing around within a two-cent range, currently averaging at $3.10 a gallon nationwide. But the median average is $2.79, as the national number is heavily influenced by higher prices on the West Coast, according to Triple-A spokesperson Andrew Gross.

The cost of diesel is also dropping, now sitting at under $4 per gallon, which is the lowest price since the summer of 2023. That bodes well, indeed, for any hope that we may have of a “shockingly normal” American economy in 2024.

Photo: Daniel Acker (Getty Images)