Ris­ing gas prices add to con­sumer pock­et­book woes and Biden polit­i­cal headaches

High gas prices are hit­ting dri­vers again, mak­ing every­day tasks more expen­sive for many peo­ple and let­ting air from the White House’s sails amid its “Bide­nomics” hap­py talk.
The aver­age for U.S. gas prices hit a headache-induc­ing high in June 2022, briefly tick­ing over $5 a gal­lon after Rus­si­a’s inva­sion of Ukraine crimped glob­al oil sup­plies and sent fuel costs sky­rock­et­ing. But a year lat­er, gas prices had fall­en by about 30% due to a slump in the price of crude oil — which accounts for rough­ly half the price of a gal­lon of gas.
HOUSING STARTS FALL TO LOWEST LEVEL SINCE 2020 AS MORTGAGE RATES REMAIN HIGH
Now, at the start of the fall, gas prices are ris­ing again. The nation­al aver­age for reg­u­lar for­mu­la­tion gaso­line approach­es $3.90. That’s the high­est sea­son­al lev­el in more than a decade. And it reflects a marked change from the usu­al, annu­al cycle of gas prices, which typ­i­cal­ly decline as the sum­mer fades away. But gas prices have actu­al­ly ticked up over the past month, adding more chal­lenges to the country’s tee­ter­ing eco­nom­ic sit­u­a­tion.
There are two main fac­tors behind the high­er oil and g …