'How are we gonna get through this?' Americans face tough decisions as diesel and gas prices rise
As diesel and gas prices soar in the United States amid the war with Iran, Americans across the country are making tough decisions as they continue to cope with the heavy strain of inflation.
“You have to manage your bills. You have to manage the food you bring in. You have to manage how you pay your bills … everything has to be budgeted,” said Betsy Rosado, a 47-year-old mother who lives with her husband and five of their children in Spring Hill, Florida.
Rosado said her business degree has helped her manage household finances. But for others, the budgeting agony “could bring somebody to the point of depression, and it could bring somebody to a mental collapse, especially when they have kids.”
Rosado said her toddler, who has significant developmental and respiratory issues, requires treatments multiple times a week. She has had to cut back on therapy sessions because of rising gas prices.
“We had to switch to, unfortunately, virtual therapies. And with my daughter with disabilities, we are stopping occupational therapies,” she said.
As of Wednesday, the average price for a gallon of regular gasoline was $4.36, according to GasBuddy, up $1.42 since the U.S. war with Iran began on Feb. 28.
“The first thing that crosses your mind is, what is it going to be tomorrow? How are we gonna get through this, and then it's the point of, do I need to move out of this state?” Rosado said. “You feel stuck … the system is not – it's not made for us to succeed.”
Meanwhile, the cost of diesel has hit a record high at $6.30 a gallon, according to GasBuddy.
Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, told ABC News on Wednesday that “a lot of states are seeing pretty monumental jumps” in both gas and diesel prices and “there's really no signs of when this might start to slow down.”
“Until something happens to deescalate these geopolitical tensions, prices will keep going higher,” he added.
Truck drivers, who are feeling the financial strain at the pump, and farmers, who rely on diesel to power up agricultural machinery, told ABC News that the rise in diesel costs has put a strain on their businesses and their livelihoods.
Lewie Pugh, who has driven over 2 million miles for the past 25 years, is also the executive vice president of the Owner Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA), which represents nearly 150,000 small business truckers.
Pugh told ABC News that every $1 increase in diesel prices costs truckers approximately $400 more per tank. Some weeks have cost an extra $800 to fill up, he added.
“Trucking has a very slim profit margin already. There's just not a lot of profit in trucking. I've always said it was a penny saved business, not a penny made business,” Pugh said. “So when you're already constrained and something like this happens to this magnitude, you just can't absorb it as a motor carrier. They just can't. There's no way – they'll be out of business tomorrow.”
Pugh said the higher prices truckers are paying are being passed down to the companies whose products are being shipped, causing the prices of everything from food to clothes to go up for Americans.
“This has huge rippling effects in the supply chain and in the economy because trucking and truckers haul so much stuff,” he said.
For John Bartman, a fifth-generation farmer on his family’s centuries-old farm in Marengo, Illinois, told ABC News that the rising costs of diesel has vastly impacted his agricultural production.
“People are just very frustrated right now,” Bartman said.
Bartman, who grows soybeans, said Illinois is the No. 1 soybean producer in the nation, but skyrocketing prices in diesel and fertilizer have hindered his ability to grow the major crop.
“The price of diesel today is over $6 a gallon, and we use 300 gallons of diesel a day. So now we're talking $1,800 a day,” she said.
Additionally, he said that the cost of fertilizer was over $120 an acre this year.
“It just keeps on increasing all the time,” he said.
Bartman lamented the economic conditions and expressed concern about how this will impact the next generation of farmers.
“There's some people that think things are going to get better, but I've seen too many good young farmers who had a full-time job besides farming, who've just decided I can't do this anymore,” Bartman said. “We're losing that next generation that's coming into the business. So that is very destructive and very sad.”
ABC News' Sabina Ghebremedhin contributed to this report.
