How Much Is Regular Gas Costing You? Breaking Down What $20 Really Buys Across America

If you’ve been watching fuel prices lately, you might notice something surprising: a twenty-dollar bill at the pump doesn’t stretch quite as far as it used to, yet it’s not as dire as those peak 2022 days either. Right now, with the national average hovering around $3.13 per gallon for regular gas, that $20 translates to roughly six gallons—enough to fill about half your tank (most vehicles hold 12-15 gallons according to JD Power data).

But here’s where it gets interesting: your mileage literally depends on where you live.

The State-by-State Reality

Gas prices aren’t uniform across America. Currently, 20 states have already dipped below the $3 per gallon mark, while three states are still charging over $4. The gap between the most and least expensive states is striking:

• California leads the pack at $4.60 per gallon, meaning your $20 buys you just 4.35 gallons
• Texas offers the cheapest fuel at $2.67 per gallon, stretching that $20 to 7.5 gallons

That’s a difference of more than three gallons for the same $20—a gap that compounds if you’re a frequent driver.

Putting Today’s Prices in Perspective

To understand whether current pricing is actually “good,” you need context. A year ago, regular gas averaged $3.50 per gallon, so $20 would have netted you slightly over 5.5 gallons. Jump back to June 2022’s peak of $5.02 per gallon, and that same $20 would’ve bought you barely four gallons—roughly a third of a tank.

The psychological threshold of $3 per gallon feels significant because it echoes pre-pandemic days, but does cheaper gas actually mean better affordability?

The Hidden Metric: Your Time

Here’s a better question: how much of your working time does filling up actually cost? According to the Federal Reserve’s labor statistics, the average worker earned $30.33 per hour in September 2024. At that rate, earning $20 takes about 40 minutes of work—and at current national average prices for regular gas, that’s enough for a little over six gallons.

Rewind to 2019 (pre-pandemic): it took 41 minutes to earn $20. Go back to 2004 when how much is regular gas was around $2 per gallon? That minimum-wage job required 43 minutes of work to earn the same amount.

The numbers suggest gas is roughly equally affordable now as it was then, despite wild price swings in between.

Why Comparing Dollar Amounts Misses the Point

Yes, $2 per gallon sounds cheaper than $3, but an economics professor’s take matters here: affordability isn’t about absolute prices—it’s about purchasing power relative to wages. When you earn more but prices also rise, the real question is whether you can buy more or less of something than before.

After two years of high inflation, seeing prices drop might feel like relief. But context reveals the full picture: workers are earning more now than in 2004, and the time investment required to buy the same amount of fuel hasn’t dramatically increased. For drivers watching every penny, the practical takeaway is that gas pricing, while frustrating when it spikes, has stabilized into a more predictable pattern than the chaos of recent years.