10 States Hit Over $5 A Gallon As Gas Prices Continue To Skyrocket

Gas prices are continuing to climb as they hit another new record high on Monday.

The national average price for gas on Monday was $4.865 per gallon, according to the American Automobile Association (AAA).

This is an increase of 25 cents in the past week and 59 cents in the past month. A year ago, the national average price for gas was $3.051 per gallon, the automobile group reported.

As of Monday, 10 states – Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Arizona, Alaska, Hawaii, Illinois, Michigan, and Indiana - were reporting an average price of gas over $5 a gallon. Washington D.C. also has an average gas price of over $5 per gallon.

Other states are also nearing $5 a gallon as they are just pennies away from the dreaded gas price mark. This includes the states of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maine, and Massachusetts.

The state with the lowest average price of gas in the country as of Monday is Georgia at $4.292 per gallon. The highest average gas price in the country is California at $6.341 per gallon, with some gas stations reported to have prices nearing $10 per gallon.

Gas prices are predicted to continue to skyrocket as one veteran oil analyst told CNN that he expects the national average to reach $5.05 a gallon in the next 10 days.

As oil prices continue to rise amid increasing demand during the summer travel season, Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at gas tracker site GasBuddy, said that he also sees a national average of $5 gallon nearing.

He said in a statement, “After a blistering week of gas prices jumping in nearly every town, city, state and area possible, more bad news is on the horizon. It now appears not if, but when, we’ll hit that psychologically critical $5 national average.

“Gasoline inventories continue to decline even with demand softening due to high prices, a culmination of less refining capacity than we had prior to COVID and strong consumption, a situation that doesn’t look to improve drastically anytime soon,” he added.

Crude oil was trading at $118 per barrel Monday morning, according to OilPrice.com.