The average family will spend $120 more per month on gas than they did one year ago, according to the Biden administration’s own methodology used to proclaim its short-term victory over rising gas prices.
President Joe Biden touted on Monday that the average family with two cars will spend $70 less at the pump per month than it would have if gas prices stayed at their mid-June peak. The calculation is based on an assumption that each driver will consume 50 gallons of gas per month or that a family with two cars will consume 100 gallons of gas per month.
The national average price of gas is $4.36 per gallon as of Monday, according to AAA. That price is 38% higher than it was one year ago on July 25, 2021, when gas was $3.16 per gallon.
Using Biden’s methodology, that means that even after accounting for the short-term drop in gas prices, the average family with two cars will still spend $120 more per month on gas than it did one year ago.
The average family will spend $197 more per month on gas using Monday’s average nationwide price than it would have if gas had remained at the average price on Biden’s first day in office on Jan. 20, 2021.
“For American families looking for a little more breathing room, these savings matter,” Biden tweeted Monday.
The White House did not return a request for comment.
Despite the price of gas remaining at historically high levels, Biden has proclaimed victory over rising gas prices multiple times over the past week.
Biden said in a July 18 tweet that the average driver saves about $25 a month at the pump following a 34-day drop in prices from the mid-June peak.
I know what it’s like to grow up in a family where if the price of gas went up, we felt it,” Biden tweeted. “An extra 50 cents a gallon back in your pocket is meaningful. And we’re not done working to lower costs for families.”
Biden organized a meeting with his economic team on Friday to boast about gas prices falling further.
“Today, America’s drivers will spend on average $30 less per month on gas than they did during peak prices,” Biden tweeted on Friday. “For families like the one I grew up in, ending the month with a little extra in your pocketbook counts for something.”
Biden attributed the short-term drop in gas prices in part to his move to release 1 million barrels of oil a day from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, a move that led to the exportation of 5 million barrels of oil to the Netherlands, India, and China in June.
“Four months ago, I gave an order to release 1 million barrels of oil per day, a day, for our nation from our nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve,” Biden said. “And I led the world to coordinate the largest release of oil reserves in history, including from other countries. In total, more than 240 million barrels to boost global supply.”
