Outside the Beltway

Gas Prices Up 50% Since War Started

Making an unpopular war less popular.

James Joyner · Wednesday, May 6, 2026 · 5 comments

AP (“Gasoline costs “50% more in the US than it did before the Iran war“):

The price of a gallon of regular gasoline climbed 31 cents in the past week, spiking to an average of $4.48 per gallon Tuesday, according to AAA, hitting the wallets of drivers after rising 50% since the war with Iran began.

The main reason drivers are paying more at the pump is because of the global energy crisis caused by the Iran war. The price of crude oil, which is the main ingredient in gasoline, has been climbing for most of the past two months because the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow passage of the Persian Gulf through which a fifth of the world’s crude oil normally passes, has effectively been shut, and oil tankers have been stranded there unable to deliver crude.

OTB readers of course know all this. As I’ve noted many times over the years, we’re all acutely aware of gasoline prices in a way that we’re not for any other commodity, both because it’s something we buy with regularity and because, unlike any other product I can think of, the price is in giant numbers visible from the street so we can comparison shop while driving.

In my personal experience, prices are up more than 50 percent. The station where I refuel most frequently, both because it’s almost always considerably cheaper than others and because I pass it on my morning commute, was at $2.33/gallon for cash customers the day before the war kicked off. It was $3.97 when I filled up yesterday morning. It was $4.07 when I drove past on my way home. That’s exactly a 75 percent hike.

AP provides this handy graph to illustrate the spike:

Because Americans feel this acutely, incumbents, and especially Republicans, will likely be punished for this in November. And rightly so, since this was a war entirely of the Trump administration’s choosing and the consequences were predictable and, indeed, predicted.

As always, when looking at gas prices, some perspective is in order. Because we’re so acutely aware of price fluctuations, we can get fixated on nominal prices. That’s especially true for those of us old enough to remember when gas was well under a dollar.

Here’s the Energy Department’s tracking of gas prices going back to 1950:

So, not only is $4.48 considerably higher than it was before the war, it’s actually expensive in inflation-adjusted dollars. It’s considerably higher than during the 1973 OPEC oil embargo and comparable to levels during the 1980 embargo. Indeed, only during short-lived spikes in 2008, 2014, and 2023 did the real cost exceed its current level.

At least egg prices are down.