Gasoline prices have risen at an unprecedented pace this year, pushing the average pump price in San Francisco and a few other California towns past the $3 mark for regular gas. In Southern California, many filling stations also have passed that benchmark.
With fuel costs soaring still faster in other parts of the U.S. -- a fresh Energy Department survey today will show just how fast -- experts say the surge could knock the wheels off an economic recovery before it even gets underway.
Market watchers differ on what's pushing up the cost of fuel and the oil from which it is made, but they agree that this is a particularly bad time for another leap in energy prices.
"The gasoline rise is like a tax we feel very painfully every time we go to a gas station," said Ed Leamer, director of the UCLA Anderson Forecast. For consumers struggling to regain their confidence, "it adds uncertainty. It will tend to retard the economic recovery and make it less powerful."
For Roy Persinko of Mar Vista, it hardly matters that gasoline prices remain well below last year's record levels. As a home repairman, Persinko has endured the housing market collapse and weathered fearful customers' calling him only for work that can't be avoided. Then last month, Persinko's truck was stolen; police recovered it, but $20,000 in parts and tools was gone.
"They took everything," Persinko said. "They left me with a hard hat that wasn't even mine and a jar of peanut butter. They even stole an old telephone book out from under the seat."
Persinko has watched the cost of filling his truck rise from about $70 in January to more than $100 now.
"That really opened my eyes," said Persinko, 51. "It's speculators driving the commodities market, or the oil companies are pillaging again. Last time it happened, it helped bring the whole economy down. Now it's happening again."
Since early January, the average price of a gallon of regular gasoline nationally has climbed from $1.684, the lowest point in four years, to $2.624 on June 8, up 56%, according to the Energy Department's weekly survey of filling stations. The pace is faster than any ever recorded, analysts say.
It's also unusual in that California was a relative foot dragger instead of playing its usual role as the place where prices increase first and fastest.
