Mission Accomplished: Gas Average Now at $4 a Gallon

The president has kept his promise.

Round-trip airfare from New York to Los Angeles. More than a dozen dinners for two at Applebee's. Two 16 GB iPod nanos.

These are just a few of the things you could have bought if you weren't spending $368.09 a month on gasoline.

That's the average amount American households spent on gas in April, according to an exclusive analysis of data by the Oil Price Information Service for CNNMoney.

The study, which compared average gas prices with median incomes nationwide, also showed that U.S. households spent nearly 9% of their total income on gas last month.

That's more than double what the average American family spent just two years ago, when gas prices were hovering around $2.05 a gallon.

"Gas prices have just skyrocketed," said Fred Rozell, director of retail pricing at OPIS.

After surging nearly 30% this year, the national average price for regular gasoline is less than 2 cents away from $4 a gallon. That's still below the all-time high of $4.114, but prices in many parts of the country have already risen to new records well above that level.

For drivers in some states, the pinch of high gas prices is particularly painful.

He preferred a gradual adjustment and that's what we've gotten:



In Democrat parlance, we're all paying our fair share. And then some.

Enjoy your victory lap at Ground Zero today, Bammy. Then it's back to reality.

A range of polls show Obama’s approval rating has jumped, but the president continues to get dismal ratings for his handling of an economy dragged down by gas prices, which averaged $3.98 across the country on Wednesday, according to AAA.

Brace for more "unexpected" economic news tomorrow.

ADP Employer Services reported private firms added 179,000 jobs in April, fewer than the 200,000 expected. The Dow Jones Industrial Average initially dropped more than 100 points on the news before recovering some of those losses by the end of the day.

Economist Mark Zandi of Moody’s Analytics projects private business will add 180,000 jobs when the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases its monthly report on Friday, with total gains only 160,000 because of lost local and state government jobs.

While the creation of 160,000 jobs is nothing to sneeze at, it’s not enough to significantly lower the unemployment rate, since the economy has to create about that many jobs to keep up with population growth.