Pain at the Pump

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The Morning

Pain at the Pump

We look at the changes in gas prices.

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In Massachusetts.

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Simon Simard for The New York Times

By

Sam Sifton

I’m the host of The Morning.

April 21, 2026,

6:50 a.m. ET

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A lot of you are feeling this war at the gas pump. I sure am. It now costs me $106 to fill my full-size pickup truck at the neighborhood station. I know the owner a little, and I raised my eyebrows at him when I was done. He shrugged. It was clear drivers had been grinding him about it all day.

You read abstractions about the war in Iran, the Strait of Hormuz, the unstable oil market. Then you go pump 10 gallons into your minivan and experience what that means at home. Ouch.

But don’t take it out on the station owner, Lydia DePillis told me. Lydia, who covers the American economy, reported on why price hikes at the filling station

take so long to go away

. When oil prices spike, profit margins shrink for businesses down the supply chain, she said. To recoup, they keep prices a little higher even as their costs shrink.

For her story, Lydia went deep on the math those gas station owners have to do as prices spike. She introduced readers to a Massachusetts gas station owner named Alex Weatherall:

He refills his tanks about every four days, and the “rack price” that his wholesale gasoline provider charges jumped to $3.347 per gallon last week from $2.398 on Feb. 25 — an increase of 39.6 percent. His last truckload cost $39,488.

Weatherall raised

his

price by only 33.8 percent: “He would charge more, but he feared losing business if his competitors did not follow,” Lydia wrote. “Fewer visits also mean lower sales at his convenience store and restaurant.”

Gas stations — and especially independently run ones like Weatherall’s — rely for much of their income on the snacks and sodas and cigarettes and beer they sell inside. “If I had to solely rely on fuel as my only source of profit, I wouldn’t stay in business,” another owner told Lydia. “I want the consumer to come in the store, and we do everything we can to entice them to come in.”

Image

Sources: AAA (national average); U.S. Energy Information Administration (wholesale prices).

Credit...

Lydia DePillis/The New York Times

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