Alaska, Your PFD May Be Spent on Gas, Shipping Costs This Year (Yuck!)

October 5, 2022

Alaskans, our cost of living is going to be more expensive. Elections have consequences.  We are seeing it first-hand in the Last Frontier.

It didn’t have to be this way.  The President could have kept Alaskan and American jobs and job sites buzzing with activity, instead of shuttering many and putting tens of thousands of U.S. energy workers on the unemployment lines.  But he didn’t, and now Americans are paying for those poor decisions.

OPEC+’s decision to cut two million barrels of output a day being announced earlier today, coupled with the U.S.’s lack of energy independence and a federal administration hell-bent on keeping us subservient to world energy shenanigans, will lead to us paying more at the pump for the upcoming winter.

In the last month, Alaska’s average price per-gallon of Regular Unleaded has jumped nearly $.70 – almost nine times faster than the national average. 

Aviation and diesel have also increased over the past few weeks, which means that the goods moving across the vastness of our state – whether by ship, truck or air – will cost more to get to store shelves.  Rest assured those costs will be passed through. 

Coupled with inflation and seasonal cost-of-living adjustments we already expect during the winter months, and we should all be glad the Permanent Fund Dividend payouts were record highs this year (even if they were less than statutory, but that’s a different story for a different day).  They’ll help us weather the storm, until we elect competent, America-first leadership and turn the tide away from the battering we are taking from this administration.