Gas Prices Keeping Americans At Home

Americans are driving less, trimming vacations and cutting back on heating and air conditioning, according to an AP-Ipsos poll taken as gasoline prices in many areas have topped $3 a gallon.

Seven in 10 say gas prices are causing a financial pinch. And that pressure is being felt increasingly by middle-income and higher-income families.

"Now, I'm just going to work and coming home — not doing anything else," said Kathleen Roberts, who makes a daily, 100-mile round trip from York, Pa., to her teaching job in Baltimore.

Like many Americans, Roberts is trying to adjust to gas prices that have risen steadily over the last five months. The price of a gallon of regular-grade gas is now almost what it was soon after Hurricane Katrina battered domestic refineries along the Gulf Coast last August.

The average price of a gallon of regular gasoline was $2.92 on Friday, according to AAA, the motorists' club. The all-time high came last year on Labor Day, according to AAA, when that same gallon cost $3.05.

"These days, I'm just traveling, period," Roberts said. "Instead of going to the market as often, if I don't have it, I just make do. In our neighborhood, we just borrow from each other."

When asked what would be a fair price for gasoline, many of those surveyed said $2-a-gallon on average — a price not seen consistently in the U.S. for more than a year, according to AAA.

Energy analysts blame the higher prices on a tight supply internationally, unstable politics in oil-producing countries and fast-growing economies in places like China and India.

Other factors include an inadequate number of U.S. refineries and delays in the switchover to summer blends of fuel, the analysts say.

Whatever the reasons, soaring gas prices are affecting behavior.

Two-thirds of people said they have cut back on driving and have reduced the use of heating and air conditioning. Half now say they have trimmed their vacation plans.

Hearing talk about vacation cutbacks upsets Susan Morang, a psychiatric counselor from Washington, Maine. She helps clients deliver antiques for sale during the summer tourism season.

"Each summer, you have to make the majority of your money to live on the whole rest of the year," said Morang, who has cut her own driving to the minimum.

Morang's GMC truck guzzles gas, but she said she needs it to help clients haul their belongings. "A lady paid me 40 dollars yesterday," she said. "I used it to fill my gas tank halfway."

Gas prices have affected some behaviors more than others.

The number of people who say gas prices are causing them money problems has risen from half to two-thirds in the last year, the poll found.

Just over six in 10 of those who make between $50,000 and $75,000 a year now say gas prices are a hardship — up from four in 10 a year ago. And more people say they will reduce driving, travel and utility use.

But the price spike hasn't influenced people's views on buying more fuel-efficient cars.

A year ago, four in 10 said they were considering getting a car with better mileage — the same number who say that now, according to the AP-Ipsos poll of 1,000 adults taken Monday through Wednesday. The poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Auto industry watcher Erich Merkle said gas prices would have to top $4 a gallon in the next six to nine months to significantly affect sales of SUVs and light trucks.

Jerry Taylor, an energy analyst at the Cato Institute, which favors limited government and free markets, said the price of gasoline as a share of a worker's earnings is not that high when compared with the share of earnings 50 years ago.

But reports about "skyrocketing gas prices" have an influence because "there's a big market for fist-shaking and red-faced conniption in the media."

Don't try to tell Max Paredes, an engineer in Rogers, Ark., that gas prices aren't that high.

"I used to pick up my kids from football. Now they need to get rides from other people," he said.