In a delightful twist for commuters and holiday road trippers alike, the great American gas price descent continues, with some states even breaking the $3-per-gallon floor. As per the automotive group AAA, the national average is now $3.52—a 35-cent drop from the 2023 peak just a couple of months ago. Folks traveling back to work post-Thanksgiving are witnessing this easing, with prices 31 cents cheaper than the same time last year, as KXAN reports.
Texans, in particular, are strutting to the pumps with the lowest state average in the nation at $2.71 per gallon. Meanwhile, Californians are biting their nails, forking over the highest price at $4.90 a gallon. With Texas maintaining its reputation for independence, it's no surprise that the Lone Star State has kept the average gallon cheaper than last year by 18 cents and an impressive 30 cents cheaper than just last month.
Southern states are leading the charge in this welcomed downturn. "More [states] will follow in the next few days," said Andrew Gross, an AAA spokesperson, in an enormous show of optimism during his interview with ABC News. In the peachy realms of Georgia and Mississippi, golden numbers have already slipped below 3 bucks. States such as Louisiana, Alabama, and South Carolina are seeing figures below the $3.10 mark, dangling the possibility of further declines.
The plummeting prices can be attributed in part to a drop in demand hitting harder than the turkey's fate on Thanksgiving. The Energy Information Administration noted a sag in gasoline consumption, dipping even below the 2020 doldrums brought on by stay-at-home orders. To top this off, the cost of crude oil—mother's milk to the gas stations—has seen almost a 9% decrease in the past month, as Severin Borenstein, an energy industry savant at the University of California, Berkeley, pointed out. As he stirred a steaming pot of predictions, Borenstein suggested "the national average could drop another 15 cents by the end of 2023," unless the Israel-Hamas war spins the market into a haystack.
