Jim Bianco Says Gas Has Never Been This High in the Fall. We Checked Every Week Since 2004

Jim Bianco put a single question to his followers on X on Oct. 27: “What’s going on with gas prices?” His answer came with a chart that lays each year’s pump prices from January to December on top of one another, going back to 2004. “Since gas prices are highly seasonal, it may help to look at them seasonally,” the Bianco Research president wrote. Then came the conclusion:

“We have never seen gas prices this high in the autumn.”

Bianco lines the years up by date because a raw price can mislead when the season matters. In the EIA’s weekly data, the average October price came in below August’s in 12 of the 22 years from 2004 to 2025. This year October has averaged about 25 cents more than August. We tested Bianco’s claim against the government’s own record: the Energy Information Administration’s weekly survey of U.S. regular gasoline, every week since January 2004, in the prices drivers paid at the time and adjusted for inflation.

In Dollars of the Day, Bianco Is Right by a Wide Margin

Count fall as September and October. In 2026 that is eight EIA readings, from Sept. 7 to Oct. 26. Every one of them was higher than any fall week from 2004 through 2025. The old record was $3.91 a gallon in the week of Oct. 10, 2022. This fall’s lowest reading, $4.16 on Sept. 7, beat it by 25 cents.

Averaged over September and October, gas has cost $4.33 a gallon this year. The best earlier fall was 2012, at $3.79. The latest reading, for the week of Oct. 26, was $4.27, up 123 cents, or 41%, from $3.04 in the same week of 2025.

The fall run is the second leg of a rough year at the pump. Gas sat near $2.78 in January, peaked at $4.50 in May, and was still above $4.30 in mid-October. Since mid-August, every weekly reading has been above the highest price for the same week in any year since 2004. Prices have eased for five straight weeks since the $4.48 reading of Sept. 21, but only by about 21 cents.

Gas this fall against the record

Adjusted for Inflation, This Fall Ranks Eighth

A dollar buys less than it did in 2008, so old prices understate what drivers felt at the time. Restate every week in September 2026 dollars using the Labor Department’s consumer price index, and the picture changes. This fall’s $4.33 average ranks eighth of the 23 falls since 2004. Seven earlier falls cost more: 2012 ($5.52), 2008 ($5.28), 2011 ($5.23), 2013 ($4.97), 2005 ($4.74), 2014 ($4.68), 2007 ($4.52).

The 2012 fall averaged $3.79 a gallon at the time, which is about $5.52 today. The single priciest fall week on record since 2004 came on Sept. 15, 2008, right after Hurricane Ike shut Gulf Coast refineries: $3.84 then, about $5.91 in today’s dollars. Measured the same way, the week of Oct. 26 also ranks eighth among the same week in each year since 2004.

The calendar

In today’s dollars, seven falls since 2004 cost drivers more than this one

U.S. regular gasoline, adjusted to Sept. 2026 dollars. Each row is a year, running January to December. Darker means pricier. 2026 is the coral row.

$2$3$4$5$6

A gallon, in today’s dollars

$2$3$4$5$6

A gallon, in today’s dollars

So both readings hold. Drivers are paying more at the pump this fall than in any fall on record since 2004, and the gap over 2022 is wide. Against what everything else costs, gas was a heavier burden in the fall in seven earlier years, most of them between 2007 and 2014. Bianco’s chart shows prices as drivers paid them, without that adjustment.

Trump Says Prices Will Soon Come ‘Plummeting Down’

Bianco posted his chart the same day President Donald Trump made the opposite forecast. In a Truth Social post on Oct. 27, Trump said he was traveling to a rally in Corpus Christi, Texas, where the United States would receive one million barrels of Venezuelan oil, “just the first shipment of BILLIONS of Barrels to come.” He wrote: “Gasoline and Diesel Prices will soon come plummeting down.”

For scale, U.S. refineries ran about 16.6 million barrels of crude a day in the week ended Oct. 16, according to the EIA. One million barrels is about an hour and a half of that. Diesel, which feeds straight into the price of groceries, averaged $6.35 a gallon in the week of Oct. 26, up from $3.72 a year earlier, and it has risen for two straight weeks.

What to Watch

• The Monday EIA reading: five straight weekly declines have taken only about 21 cents off the Sept. 21 high. A faster drop would start to close the gap with past falls.
• November: counting November as fall too, the highest weekly price before 2026 was still the $3.91 of October 2022. Gas would have to drop about 36 cents from the Oct. 26 level to get back under it.
• Diesel: it is still climbing while gas eases, and it moves freight costs. Sustained diesel strength would test Trump’s forecast first.
• Oil and stocks: a money manager has argued high oil prices haven’t hit stocks yet.