Gas Prices have not risen much since 2008

Gas prices have doubled since Obama took office. 

Average gas price today is $3.79 a gallon

Average gas price on the day Obama took office was around $1.80 a gallon (this is at the height of the recession)

Average gas price July 2008 $4.12 a gallon (this is the high it hit under Bush before the recession)

Adjusted for inflation the highest gas prices got under Bush would be around $4.35 today. 

So, excluding the crazy circumstance that gas prices shot way down to below $2.00 a gallon just as Obama was taking office and then taking into account inflation, gas prices have not truly doubled under Obama although they have went up more than any of us would like. But there is also a delicate balance of supply and demand at work here and as prices of gas start to go up it is a sign that the economy is doing well. More people are using gas and therefore prices go up. Then when people start to try and conserve gas because they have less money the prices go down in a attempt to get people to buy more gas. 

Anyway, my argument is that gas prices have risen under Obama from an average somewhere above $3.00 a gallon the year before he took office to about $3.80 now. I do agree that if gas was down around $3.00 a gallon it would make things easier for our daily lives but I also think that gas prices going up is a sign that this economy has improved.

Here are the averages for gas prices in 2008 from a website called consumerreports.org

01/08 – 3.11

02/08- 3.04

03/08 – 3.16

04/08 – 3.39

05/08- 3.72

06/08 – 3.98

07/08 – 4.11

08/08 – 3.88

09/08 – 3.68

10/08 – 3.48

11/08 – 2.22

12/08 – 1.81

Added together and divided by 12 gives you an average of $3.30 a gallon the year before Obama took office.

If you removed the last two months of 2008 due to the extreme conditions of the recession you get an average of $3.55 a gallon in 2008 then I could only find a calculator to adjust for inflation to the year 2011 but when you adjust $3.55 to what it cost in 2011 you get $3.70.

So, effectively we were paying an average of somewhere above $3.70 a gallon for our gas most of the year 2008.