raleigh. i m meteorologist mike bettes. now back to you. thank you. gas prices are inching closer to record highs with just six weeks until the summer driving season. right now, the national average is $3.84 a gallon, up nearly 30 cents from a month ago. and this is going to make your wallet ache. it is about a dollar more than the average this time last year. the record is $4.11. we hit that in 2008. msnbc s richard lui is in yonkers, new york, where, look at those gas prices behind you, richard. reporter: i know. it does hurt. a lot of the customers that are coming by today here, contessa, are saying ouch. it is $3.86 in providence, rhode island. $3.97, milwaukee, wisconsin, two cities you know quite well. here, $4.19. as you can probably imagine, that has some real effects on people. such as food bank in california. santa clara is where the second harvest food bank serves 250,000 people. they are seeing their gas prices go up by over half a million
we re not sure. yet. gas prices up about 30% from a year ago. last year the national average for a gallon of unleaded self serve gasoline, $2.86. this year $3.82.
and there s plenty of pain to go around. i know. a year ago the national average was $2.86 is gallon. today, aaa says it s $3.82 a gallon on average. and the summer travel season, weeks away now. there is so much pain at pump, president obama can t ignore it. i understand how big of a strain this is on family budgets, and, you know, already we ve got about $3.85, close to $4. that s that s tough. you know, if you ve got to drive to work every day and you don t have an option in terms of the car that you re driving, and it s taking more and more out of your budget, that s a problem. okay. let s be proactive here. some tricks to finding the cheapest gas in your area. casey wian joins us from los angeles, where gas prices are already above $4 a gallon. so you must know all the cheap places already, casey? reporter: well, carol, there are tricks.
prices where sticker shock i don t even want to know how much it is now. reporter: has many shell shocked. here the average price for a gallon of gas, $4.13. if you can find it. americans across the country are being squeezed at the pump. this week, the new national average for unleaded, $3.77 a gallon. 22 cents more than just a month ago, when the average was $3.55. a year ago, $2.86, almost a dollar lower than today. the oil industry says taxes, seasonal blends and refinery problems have driven up prices. so has unrest in the middle east. gasoline and oil supplies are plentiful within the united states. however, you look at it from a global perspective, you have investors looking at the civil unrest in the middle east. reporter: as gas prices have shot up, commuters have started driving less. for the fifth straight week, gas sales are down. enough is enough. about a week ago.
washington examiner. sam cedar, host of the the majority report and jonathan altar, author of the promise. welcome, gentlemen. i don t know why i m out here and you re there. it s a fluke of geography that we ll have to cope with. topic one today, gas prices which continue to rise. we ve got the current gas prices. we ve got a card to put up, the average was about $3.77 at the pump, a month ago it was $3.55. that s up from a year ago when it was $2.86. jonathan, let me start with you. are we at a point where both parties are going to have to react and this is going to become a political football as the silly season unfolds? i think it already is a football. the republicans are going back to their drill, baby, drill mantra from 2008 and the democrats are going to talk about ending our addiction to oil. the debates are so familiar at