Gas prices across the United States have risen exponentially from the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, with the average price for a gallon of gas on Monday being a stunning 137% higher than it was two years ago.
GasBuddy, a company that tracks gas prices in the U.S., tweeted Monday morning that the average price for a gallon of fuel is now $4.14 a gallon, inching up from recent dropping prices and nearly $2.50 higher than the price of gas on April 26th, 2020, when it hit a pandemic low of $1.74 a gallon.
According to AAA, which also tracks gas prices, the average price for gasoline in New Jersey on Monday was higher than the national average – $4.225 a gallon, down from the record high of $4.37 a gallon set on March 10th, but still up 12 cents from a week ago and over 43% from a year ago.
Specifically in Ocean County, the average price for a gallon is $4.213 – up 42.5% in the past years.
The price of oil, already rising in President Biden’s first year in office, skyrocketed following Russia’s invasion Ukraine and the subsequent U.S. ban on Russian oil. The Biden administration announced the release of 1 million barrels of oil per day for the next six months from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, but it has done little to bring prices down.