The little-known factor that's hiked gas prices since 2019

Almost everyone drives, which means almost everyone cares about the price of gasoline.?

And the biggest driver of gas prices is the price of oil.

But in recent years, another factor has influenced prices at the pump — profit margins.?

Our Chart of the Week highlights how much profits on gas sales have risen in the last few years. As of May 2023, profit margins on gasoline sales were a whopping 77% higher than in May 2019, which is as far back as this data series goes. In December 2022, profit margins peaked at more than double – 120%, to be precise – the level seen in May 2019.?

Our columnist Rick Newman gets into this data set from Michael Havlin, economist at the US Federal Maritime Commission, who tracked these margins to highlight this underrated factor for the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Monthly Labor Review.

In more practical terms, margins were 6.7% then and are around 12% now, which is $0.43 of a $3.64 gallon, the average national price right now.

Read Rick’s full column about why these margins have ballooned so much — one small case study of many that showcases the ways we’ve been paying more these days.

—?Ethan Wolff-Mann, Senior Editor at Yahoo Finance