Gas prices in LA County have increased for the 22nd consecutive day, rising over 40 cents in the last 26 days to $5.34 according to data from the American Automobile Association (AAA).
These upward trends aren’t unique to California. The national average is on its seventh consecutive day rising and is over 20 cents more than a month ago.
AAA and the Oil Price Information Service report that while prices are high in LA, they are still lower than October 2022′s record of $6.49. The national average has also dropped by $1.41 since the record was set in June 2022 at $5.02.
AAA reports the national average price at $3.61 as of April 9 and California’s average at $5.37. During the pandemic, there was a sharp drop in the price of gasoline, but as people began returning to in-person work and commuting, gas prices sharply increased again.
TimTim Leung is a second-year graduate student at Annenberg and has been putting off getting fuel because of the spike in prices.
“It’s too expensive….but [it] seems like it’s not dropping,” she said.
Leung says that her friends have also felt the increase, particularly one friend who gets premium gas. Leung previously relied on a discount app for cheaper gas but recently ran out of points on the app and now has to pay more.
Brandon Laventure, a graduate student in the Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work, said he drives an electric vehicle for environmental reasons. Like many hybrid and electric car drivers, gas prices haven’t been on his mind.
“To be honest, I haven’t thought about gas prices in a long time,” he said. “I have a private little sigh of relief whenever I hear other people complaining about gas prices.”
“I have noticed that everywhere I go, it’s like $5…before it was like $3 or $4,” said Bigane Perez, an LA County resident.
Perez says she doesn’t have much of a choice when going to fuel up.
“If I have to fill up, I just do it because everywhere it’s going to be hard,” she said. “Everywhere I go, it doesn’t matter where … it’s just always high.”
Though California is experiencing this increase, GasBuddy’s head of petroleum analysis Patrick De Haan says that increased prices during March are to be seasonally expected due to maintenance affecting supply. GasBuddy is an app that uses crowdsourced data to track current gasoline prices from station to station, helping users find the cheapest gas in their area.
However, in an April 8 statement on X, De Haan suggested that there may be light at the end of the tunnel for Californians.
“Wholesale prices are down significantly today, which likely means price increases will soon fade, and price decreases could happen.”