Will Labor Day Travelers See Lower—or Higher—Gas Prices?

• The national gas price average is $3.81 as of Monday, August 28, registering a slight uptick over the past month as demand remains strong.

• The western states continue to see higher average prices for gasoline, including states like California, Oregon, Hawaii, Washington, and Alaska.

• The Atlantic hurricane season could once again cause disruptions to refinery operations, already dented by several weeks of high heat in the summer.

The last major travel holiday of the season is coming up, after one of the busiest summers for travelers in quite a few years. And despite the high demand, the past three months have seen much more favorable gas prices than the same period in 2022.

But will this trend hold through the next couple of weeks?

The good news is that crude oil prices have backed off some of the summer highs, and are sitting below the $80 mark.

Still, a very hot summer has already contributed to gasoline production slowdowns along the Gulf Coast, delivering tighter supply than we've seen in months.

AAA notes that the current gasoline price average is $3.81 a gallon, as of August 28, or about a quarter of a dollar higher than during the last week of July. The current average is also almost identical to the one observed during this time in 2022, which saw much more extreme gasoline price highs on a season-long basis, reaching the $5.00 mark in mid-June.