White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre‘s comment about gas prices currently remaining well below their 2022 peak has sparked backlash among conservatives on social media and other users complaining that fuel is still “way overpriced.”
During a press briefing on Monday, Jean-Pierre responded to a question by a reporter asking about the increase of gas prices across the country over the last month and what the Biden administration was going to do about it.
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“I don’t have any new actions to read out,” Jean-Pierre said. “I would say that gas prices remain well below their peak back in 2022, I think that’s important. The average gas price right now is cheaper than this time last year, and that’s because of what this president has been doing over the last three years.”
FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images
As of Tuesday, the national average price for gas was $3.644 per gallon, according to the American Automobile Association (AAA), up from $3.634 the day before and $3.608 a week before. A month ago, on March 16, the national average gas price was $3.455 per gallon. Compared to a year ago, gas prices are slightly lower: on April 16, 2023, the national average was $3.669 per gallon.
The Republican National Committee shared a clip of the press briefing on X, formerly known as Twitter, writing that “gas prices are up almost 52 percent since Biden took office.”
Another social media user on the platform wrote: “Used to be 2 bucks. Now it’s over 3 bucks. The fact that it’s not 4 bucks anymore doesn’t change the fact it’s still high.” Another wrote that gas prices were “still way overpriced.”
A user who described herself as an “old-school conservative” wrote: “Karine Jean-Pierre praises the current gas prices, even after being told they’ve gone up 20¢/gallon in just the past month. Are you impressed by gas prices under Biden?”
When Biden took office in January 2021, gas prices were an average of $2.4 per gallon across the country, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). By December of the same year, they had risen to over $3 per gallon, and in June 2022, they reached a peak of $5.06 per gallon due to the hardships caused in part by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Statista
This chart, provided by Statista, shows the weekly average retail price of regular gasoline in the U.S. (per gallon, including taxes).
Gas prices, whose vertiginous climb contributed to the rise of inflation between 2022 and 2023, have recently been climbing across the country, raising concerns that they will discourage the Federal Reserve from cutting interest rates. According to Charlie Bilello, chief market strategist at Creative Planning, gas prices have jumped by 17 percent so far this year, nearing their highest level since October 2023.
But while the rise in gas prices is bad news for U.S. drivers, their growth is not totally unexpected. It’s common for the cost of gas to increase as the weather gets warmer and people are eager to get on the road, between March and April, and peak at the beginning of summer in June.
Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, wrote on X that the rise in gas prices “was completely expected and where we are today is not a surprise at all.” In its outlook for 2024, GasBuddy predicted that the highest prices this year will be reached at the peak of the summer driving season in May, with the national average potentially rising as high as $3.89 per gallon.
Newsweek contacted De Haan for comment by email on Tuesday morning.
“The record gasoline average of $5.04/gal in June 2022 will not be repeated this year, with few caveats,” De Haan said.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
