The question
Why is gas so expensive right now?
Regular is $4.48 this week. Diesel is $6.53, the highest ever recorded. Whether that counts as expensive depends on the ruler, so here is the price against every month since 1980, then the reasons behind it.
How expensive is it, honestly?
Adjusted for inflation, this month’s average ($4.06) lands at the 72nd percentile of all months since January 1980. 155 months cost more, and the record is nowhere near now: $6.21 in June 2008. Pricier than usual; still short of the worst stretches.
The full verdict, month by month →
Are gas prices going up?
This week, yes: regular rose 15.9¢ to $4.48, its 3rd straight weekly increase, the highest since the week of May 18, 2026. New EIA numbers land every Monday, and this page rebuilds with them; this answer covers the week of September 21, 2026.
Where the $4.48 goes
Start with the oil. The crude in one gallon of regular costs about $2.00 right now, 49% of the pump price; in January 1980 crude’s share was 68%. The other $2.06 pays for refining it, hauling it, taxing it and selling it. That slice was 36¢ in 1980, and inflation explains only part of the climb since.
The 2026 spike ran through crude first: WTI went from about $60 a barrel in January 2026 to $102 in May 2026, and the pump followed it up, $2.81 to $4.48. Crude has since eased to about $84; the pump, $4.06, mostly hasn’t followed it down. Prices ride the escalator up and take the stairs down.
There is a floor under the price, too. In April 2020 crude averaged $16.55 a barrel and gas still cost $1.84, because refineries, trucks and taxes get paid whatever oil does.
Diesel is the harder story
Diesel is $6.53 this week, an all-time record, and its gap over regular ($2.05) is a record too. Diesel hauls nearly everything you buy, and a diesel spike shows up in grocery prices about 6 months later. The clock on this one is already running.
The diesel flip →The ripple to your groceries →
The lens that settles it
Price the gallon in the average worker’s time and this month costs 7.5 minutes, above the 46-year median of 6.7 but well under June 2008’s 13.5. Painful is real; unprecedented it is not.
The three lenses, 1980 → today →
Looking for a particular year instead? Gas prices by year, 1980 → today
Sources: EIA weekly retail prices, BLS CPI-U and average hourly earnings for production and nonsupervisory workers, FRED. Real dollars use the August 2026 CPI. Full series list under sources; this page rebuilds every Monday.