Gas Is on the Path to Less Than $3 per Gallon

For 62 days straight, the average national price for a gallon of gas has fallen, reaching $3.96 on Monday. That's around a 21% drop—$1.06 per gallon—since the $5.02-a-gallon high reached on June 14, reports CNN Business. In nearly 30 states, a gallon now costs less than $4, with 21 states seeing prices of $3.87 per gallon or less, per AAA. About a quarter of gas stations around the country are even falling under $3.50. And these benchmarks could be just the beginning of lower prices at the pump, with CNN noting that the bulk of the country could make it under the $3 per gallon mark before 2023 hits.

Patrick De Haan of GasBuddy tells TheStreet that a few states could even fall below $3 within the week, per Yahoo Finance, which lists the states most likely to benefit from potential upcoming decreases as Texas, South Carolina, Oklahoma, Georgia, Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, and Kentucky. Gas prices are mainly falling due to a drop in oil prices, as well as a surprise slashed interest rate in China due to its sluggish economy, per Barron's. As summer driving season comes to a close and kids go back to school, gas won't be in as much demand, and prices are expected to drop even further.

But increasingly lower gas prices aren't a guarantee, with some experts noting they could start to rise again, reports WRAL. De Haan notes that wholesale gas prices are seeing an uptick, and that a better-than-expected jobs report this month could mean plenty of people will still be commuting to work. And then there are the other unexpecteds. "We still don't know what Putin is going to do, or if we're going to get a hurricane hitting the Gulf Coast," Tom Kloza of the oil price-reporting agency OPIS tells CNN. (More gas prices stories.)