Gas Prices Keeping Americans At Home

New Poll Finds People Driving Less, Trimming Vacations, Lowering AC

(AP) 
"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.