From The Washington Post:
Trump said gas prices are ‘peanuts.’ Only if you’re rich.
The Washington Post calculated how increased gas prices have impacted different income groups.
For households in the top quarter, earning $100,000 or more, the same costs amount to less than 1 percent.
The gap has widened since March, as the U.S. war on Iran escalated and oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz stalled, with implications for global markets.
The Post calculated those figures by combining monthly gas prices released by AAA with census earnings figures and federal data on how far different income groups typically drive to work.
Lower-income workers tend to live farther from their jobs, in areas with little or no public transit, and are more likely to drive older, less fuel-efficient vehicles. Many are not able to work from home. When prices rise, they have few ways to reduce their exposure — cutting back on driving means cutting back on getting to work, to doctors, to family.
I don’t go out as much. Just back and forth to doctors and that’s it,” said Debbie Zambrana, while filling up her tank at a Long Island gas station one morning last week.
Zambrana, who worked in a day care and then as a housekeeper in a hospital before disability forced her to stop working, said she has been driving as little as possible to save on gas. Her son often asks her to take his children places — their school concerts, an award ceremony — and for the first time, she recently told him that she could only drive them if he covered the fuel.
As a result of the war, U.S. gas prices have increased more than 40 percent compared with a year ago, reaching a national average of $4.50 a gallon this month, up from $3.18 in May 2025.
President Donald Trump has floated options to reduce those prices, including suspending the federal fuel tax. But he also has dismissed the war’s economic impact on Americans, saying that his priority is to prevent Iran from accessing nuclear weapons. On Tuesday he said about gas prices: “This is peanuts.”
Personal finance experts commonly advise that people shouldn’t spend more than 10 percent of their after-tax income on commuting expenses, including car loan payments, insurance, tolls and parking. Spending 4 percent of income on gas alone can quickly throw everything out of whack.
Don Rice has been living on a fixed income since retiring from the Long Island Railroad, and gas prices are cutting into his careful budgeting. Last month, he stopped picking up fast food, and he gave up the drives he enjoys in his pickup truck on Gilgo Beach, which is about 10 miles from his home. “Sand uses more gas,” he explained.
He has been filling his red Toyota Tacoma pickup truck more often, hardly ever letting the gas drop below half a tank. “I try to get half a tank before it goes up another five cents,” he said.
Last week, he paid $40 for nine gallons. He remembers when it cost about $25 to fill his tank, and he’s hopeful those prices will return soon. “It’ll come down once they straighten out this mess,” he predicted.
The gas price burden is heaviest in rural counties across the Deep South, Appalachia and the Great Plains. Gas prices tend to be lower than the national average in some of those areas. But low incomes and long commutes compound each other. In Owsley County, Kentucky, the poorest county in The Post’s analysis, the median household earns about $22,000 a year. Estimated fuel costs alone consume nearly 19 percent of that.
In Suffolk County, New York — where Bay Shore sits — the county median income is $130,000. But in pockets of poverty in communities like Brentwood and Central Islip, typical household incomes fall to $47,000, and fuel costs eat close to 10 percent of that.
Luis Henriquez works in a car dealership, but he’s paying off credit card debt and still driving the 23-year-old BMW Z4 that used to be his father’s. The car requires “super” gasoline, the most expensive, and last week, Henriquez, 35, paid for $20 of gas in cash and only got 3.7 gallons. He’s been doing this over and over again lately — paying what he can afford for gas, only to burn through it and need to return a few days later.
“I don’t have the money for it. I’m trying to avoid driving,” he said. “I used to drive to parks and stuff, the beach once it gets nice out. But prices are crazy — especially with what we’re already paying for groceries going up.”
Research by economists at the New York Federal Reserve found that when energy prices jumped following Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz in March, households earning under $40,000 cut their gasoline consumption by about 7 percent. Higher-income households barely changed their behavior at all.
Gabby Reyes, 21, is working two jobs while she studies for a degree in fashion merchandising. Making minimum wage at a furniture company and $20 an hour as a dental receptionist, she doesn’t like to pay more than $20 at a time for gas.
“It’s ridiculous,” she said. “I’m filling up my gas tank like every other day.” Her commute to college is about 40 minutes.
She paid another $20, put 4.5 gallons of gas in her tank and drove to class.
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