The Washington Post reports:

Surging gas prices have hit American drivers hard — but some much harder than others.

For households in the bottom quarter of the income distribution — those earning roughly $40,000 a year or less — commuting fuel costs now consume an average of about 4 percent of their income, according to a Washington Post analysis.

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. [Continue reading…]