Gas prices have skyrocketed due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine

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WASHINGTON – Nationally gas prices have risen by .78 cents since last week. Many economists predicted inflation to rise steadily this year, but not to this extent. One thing in particular, that’s doing the most damage to the economy is the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Inflation is the general increase in the prices of goods and the decrease in the value of money.

Right now, massive increases in gasoline and oil prices have skyrocketed in just the last week.

“Russia of course is a major energy producer,” said Steven Lerch, executive director of Washington State Economic & Revenue Forecast Council. “Although the United States does not import a lot of oil from Russia, oil is a commodity that’s priced on world markets so anytime we have anything that’s going to cause any kind of interruption on supply, that’s going to have an impact on world prices, including the prices we pay. Even if we’re buying oil from American producers or Canadian producers.”

Some people from the community were shocked to see the prices of gas.

“Wow $4.29, it’s too much,” said Pascali Hernandez, Yakima resident. “I don’t know what happened right there.”

One resident said he was going to try to find the best price in town to fill up.

“I’m only putting like, the gas stations are really high… I’m only putting like $10 in there and go to get to another gas station that’s cheaper,” said Wayne Sowbll, Yakima resident. “Like I’ve been looking around at the gas prices to try to make sure I can get the best around here.”

America’s economy hasn’t yet fully recovered from the pandemic.

“We had this huge disruption with COVID right?” said Lerch. “We had businesses shut down, we had people lose their jobs, some really substantial disruptions and that then lead to some real disruptions in the productions in all sorts of goods.”

So adding more to your savings account might be a little harder than you thought this year.

“Some of those things are really going to depend on where you live and where you work,” said Lerch. “If you live in a rural area, public transit is not really an option so it makes it more difficult to cut back on gasoline consumption.”

A lot of economists are anticipating that we will see lower inflation next year, but right now the Russian invasion of Ukraine is putting a lot of pressure on prices.

 

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