High gas prices tank Biden favorability

Gas has hit new highs locally and nationally — with no end in sight.

The average price of fuel in Massachusetts is $4.84 a gallon for regular and $4.76 nationwide.

“We’ve been breaking records nearly every day,” said Mary Maguire of AAA New England. “The price for crude is up, the demand for fuel is up with people going to weddings and graduations and more people will be on the road come July Fourth.”

China is coming out of its self-imposed COVID zerospread lockdowns and the war in Ukraine grinds on.

Bosses are also ordering workers to return to offices locally and the end result is everyone is more testy than ever with bank accounts taxed to the max.

“It’s painful and difficult for most people to absorb,” Maguire added. “It’s not just prices at the pump it’s also higher prices at the grocery store.”

A Rasmussen Reports poll out Friday shows 40% of likely voters approve of President Biden’s job performance, yet 58% disapprove.

A Real Clear Politics average also shows stronger support for Republicans in Congress over Democrats, 45.8% to 43.7% respectively.

All this unrest is causing shockwaves in the markets. U.S. stocks fell broadly Friday and pulled major indexes into the red for the week as Wall Street focused on the downside of the stillstrong U.S. jobs market, the Associated Press reported.

The AP added employers hired more workers last month than economists expected. While that’s a good sign for the economy amid worries about a possible recession, many investors saw it keeping the Federal Reserve on its path to hiking interest rates aggressively.

Bitcoin also fell, while a measure of worry in the stock market rose, even though some glass- halffull signals for inflationary pressures were buried within the jobs data.

Herald wire services contributed to this story.