Peach Tree Times

The latest inflation number, reported at 8.5%, has impacted prices across the board, hurting Americans' finances.

Record-high gasoline prices still average above $4 per gallon, as an American Automobile Association (AAA) report showed Friday's national average price per gallon of regular gas at $4.07.

On average, Americans will spend $636 more on gasoline this year than they did last year, gasmiseryindex.com reported. In the state of Georgia, the misery number sits at $721.

The Gasoline Misery Index tracks how much more (or less) the average American consumer will pay for gasoline annually.

On Friday, Georgia's average price for a gallon of regular gas was $3.71, the AAA report said.

Compiled using gas price data from AAA, average fuel efficiency (mpg) data from the U.S. Department of Energy and average miles driven from MetroMile.com, the Gas Misery Index lists the average price of a gallon of regular gasoline and adjusts using the average miles traveled by the average miles per gallon of American cars.

"The Biden economy continues to set new terrible records," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell wrote in a recent tweet. "Inflation just hit its fastest pace in more than 40 years. Food, gas and housing costs are crushing families. Prices are soaring way faster than workers' pay growth."

On April 1, President Joe Biden announced he plans to release up to 180 million barrels of crude oil from the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve over the next six months in his attempt to curb rising gas prices, which have slowly started to drop at the pump.

As of April 14, the national average price per gallon of regular gasoline stood at $4.07, a 75% increase from January 2021 when the average price was $2.33, a U.S. Energy Information Administration report said.

With Americans now spending an average of $914 more per year on gasoline than they did when the president first entered office, gasmiseryindex.com now refers to the increase as the Biden Misery Index.

On April 12, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released the Consumer Price Index data for the 12 months ending with March 2022. The data showed an 8.5% all-items annual increase, which is the largest increase in more than 40 years. The gasoline index rose 18.3% in March, accounting for more than half of the all-items monthly increase.

Biden's latest attempt at lowering inflation includes extending the availability of higher biofuel blends of gasoline—such as E15, which uses a 15% ethanol blend—during the summer to cut surging fuel prices and reduce reliance on foreign energy sources, a recent Reuters report said. There was previously a summertime ban on E15 fuel due to concerns that it contributes to smog in hot weather. The president's new edict now paves the way for Americans to keep buying E15 from June 1 to Sept. 15.