{"id":498532,"date":"2026-05-23T04:38:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T04:38:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/498532\/"},"modified":"2026-05-23T04:38:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T04:38:14","slug":"inflation-angst-spreads-as-consumers-spooked-by-rising-gas-bills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/498532\/","title":{"rendered":"Inflation Angst Spreads as Consumers Spooked by Rising Gas Bills"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jaewon Kang and Rainier Harris
Bloomberg News
(TNS)<\/p>\n

Summer is shaping up to be bleak for the\u00a0U.S.\u00a0consumer.<\/p>\n

Americans have been struggling for months with high gas prices and persistent inflation and consumer sentiment has hit a record low. The boost some got from tax refunds is fading. Now retailers including\u00a0Walmart Inc.\u00a0and Lowe\u2019s Cos. are warning that fuel costs driven by the\u00a0Iran\u00a0war may begin to show up in prices of products on their shelves.<\/p>\n

When? It\u2019s tough to predict, according to Home Depot Inc.\u2019s chief financial officer,\u00a0Richard McPhail. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot that is changing every day,\u201d he said in an interview. \u201cWe\u2019re just focused on being able to adjust as necessary.\u201d<\/p>\n

So far, there are few forecasts that the storm of macroeconomic forces is likely to let up anytime soon. \u201cWe are concerned that the consumers have less ability to spend\u201d even now, said\u00a0Joe Feldman, an analyst at\u00a0Telsey Advisory Group. Looking ahead, \u201cthe lower-income consumer is going to become even more challenged.\u201d<\/p>\n

At\u00a0Walmart, Chief Financial Officer\u00a0John David Rainey\u00a0said the company has seen some habits change: consumers bought fewer gallons per visit at\u00a0Walmart\u00a0pumps in the first quarter, with the average number falling below 10 for the first time since 2022. \u201cThat\u2019s an indication of stress,\u201d he said Thursday.<\/p>\n

Eddie Benevides\u00a0is feeling it, as filling his 2014 Jeep Cherokee takes big bites out of his budget. So he has new summer plans: he and friends will squeeze into one vehicle to carpool to\u00a0North Carolina\u00a0for a Formula One race in July rather than drive on their own.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re just not going to be able to do that,\u201d said Benevides, 21, a student at the\u00a0New Jersey Institute of Technology. \u201cI just have to mind my money.\u201d<\/p>\n

If fuel costs stay where they are now, prices of goods at\u00a0Walmart\u00a0could rise in this quarter and the second half of the year, Rainey said. In the last quarter, they went up about 1.2%, below the national rate of inflation\u2014currently at 3.8%.<\/p>\n

At some point, swelling shipping expenses will simply have to be passed on, said Michael Skordeles, head of\u00a0U.S. economics at\u00a0Truist Advisory Services Inc.\u00a0Transportation-cost increases are \u201creal and stacking up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Walmart\u00a0absorbed most of those to stay competitive in the recent quarter, Rainey said, an approach that would help secure market-share gains \u201cover the long term.\u201d<\/p>\n

At\u00a0Kroger Co., the thinking is similar. \u201cWe\u2019ll continue to sensibly push back on any price increases,\u201d Chief Executive Officer\u00a0Greg Foran\u00a0said in an interview. In fact, he said Kroger is planning the biggest price cuts in years as a strategy to gain market share.<\/p>\n

Brandon Sink, chief financial officer at Lowe\u2019s, said the fuel prices were manageable during the first quarter but are getting harder to navigate, which the company\u2019s doing by working with suppliers, including adjusting contracts where possible.<\/p>\n

For all the simmering anxiety about the summer, retailers\u2019 results in the latest quarter were mostly positive. Both\u00a0Target Corp.\u00a0and\u00a0Walmart\u00a0reported sales that beat\u00a0Wall Street\u00a0expectations. Target boosted its outlook for the full year, though that wasn\u2019t enough to prevent shares from falling sharply after executives expressed concerns about economic uncertainties and other business factors.<\/p>\n

Higher fuel costs haven\u2019t yet pushed up prices of most goods in the\u00a0U.S., according to government data. Affluent Americans have been propping up overall consumer spending, a primary engine for the economy; retail sales rose for a third-straight month in April.<\/p>\n

But inflation concerns are still hitting consumer sentiment.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels like we\u2019re heading in a direction where there\u2019s going to be these pressures on people,\u201d said\u00a0Andrew Harig, a vice president with the grocery-industry trade group FMI. Already, the budget-conscious consumer \u201cfeels kind of worn out.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014 With assistance from\u00a0Mark Niquette.<\/p>\n

Photo caption:<\/strong> High gas prices are displayed at a Mobil gas station on\u00a0May 11, 2026, in\u00a0Pasadena, California. (Mario Tama\/Getty Images\/TNS)<\/p>\n

_______<\/p>\n

\u00a92026 Bloomberg L.P. Visit\u00a0bloomberg.com.<\/a>\u00a0Distributed by Tribune Content Agency LLC.<\/p>\n

Sign in to get access to this free resource, and all of our whitepapers and reports.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\tDownload this content today!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Register to get free access to this content, as well as newsletters, continuing education, podcasts, and more\u2026<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\tRegister Now
\n\t\t\t\t<\/a>
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAlready registered?

Read the FAQs<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Jaewon Kang and Rainier HarrisBloomberg News(TNS) Summer is shaping up to be bleak for the\u00a0U.S.\u00a0consumer. Americans have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":498533,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[174],"tags":[79,3349,179,18,177489,122264,19,185,216822,169299,17,14797],"class_list":["post-498532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-consumers","tag-economy","tag-eire","tag-fuel-costs","tag-gas-prices","tag-ie","tag-inflation","tag-iran-gas-prices","tag-iran-war","tag-ireland","tag-payroll"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116622046974112716","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=498532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498532\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/498533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=498532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=498532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=498532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}