Worry About Gas Prices Jumped From 43% To 74% This Year As The Price Rose $1.55 A Gallon

Seventy-four percent of U.S. adults say they are very concerned about the price of gasoline and energy, according to a Pew Research Center survey of 5,062 adults conducted Sept. 28 to Oct. 4, up from 60% in July and 43% in January. Over the same stretch, the average retail price of regular gasoline rose from $2.81 a gallon in January to $4.36 in September, an increase of 55%, according to the Energy Information Administration.

The two lines move together

The chart puts Pew's question above EIA's monthly price on a shared time axis. As gas fell from $3.82 in October 2022 to about $3.10 through most of 2025, the share very concerned fell from 69% to 45%. Both turned up after January, when Pew's survey came before the U.S. military conflict with Iran, and concern is now 5 points higher than in October 2022, when gas cost about 50 cents less than it does now.

Gas tops the list of cost worries

Gas and energy now edge out food and consumer goods (73%) as the price Americans are most likely to be very concerned about, ahead of health care (69%) and housing (66%). Concern about food prices rose 7 points since January, far less than the 31-point jump for gas.

Both parties are more worried, and the gap has flipped

Since January, the share very concerned rose 25 points among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, from 40% to 65%, and 34 points among Democrats and Democratic leaners, from 47% to 81%. In October 2022 the pattern ran the other way, with 80% of Republicans very concerned against 58% of Democrats. In both surveys the party out of the White House was more worried, though this data can't say how much partisanship shapes how people judge the same price.

What it costs where you live

For the week of Oct. 19, regular gas averaged $4.28 nationally, $1.27 more than a year earlier. Prices ranged from $3.78 on the Gulf Coast to $5.56 on the West Coast and $6.03 in California, and the Rocky Mountain region saw the largest yearly increase among the five regions, $1.47 a gallon.

What's next

Prices dipped for the second straight week in mid-October, falling about 7 cents from the week of Oct. 5. The October consumer price index, due Nov. 10, will show how much of the gas increase is reaching other prices, and the next Pew reading, its ninth on this question since October 2022, will show whether concern eases if prices keep falling.

How we counted: concern figures are the share of U.S. adults "very concerned" about the price of gasoline and energy in Pew Research Center American Trends Panel surveys from October 2022 to Sept. 28–Oct. 4, 2026 (n=5,062); points are plotted at the middle of each survey month. Gas prices are EIA's monthly U.S. regular, all formulations retail price through September 2026, in nominal dollars, with weekly and regional prices for Oct. 19, 2026. Sources: Pew, Oct. 8, 2026; EIA monthly prices; EIA weekly prices.