The U.S. job market unexpectedly stalled in July.

A report Friday from the Labor Department shows that employers cut 23,000 jobs last month, and job gains for May and June were revised sharply lower.

The unemployment rate dipped to 4.1 percent, but only because more than 260,000 people dropped out of the workforce.

It was the second month in a row that the monthly jobs tally came in weaker than forecasters had expected.

"We are increasingly hearing from workers that they are anxious about their job security and they are frustrated by the fact that they are stuck in roles that are not necessarily good for them," said Daniel Zhao, chief economist at the job search website Glassdoor. "And that's on top of workers who are not in a job right now and feel frozen out of the job market."

Glassdoor's worker confidence index slumped in July to a record low.

The Fed’s job gets harder

Restaurants and retailers cut thousands of jobs last month and local government also saw large job losses. Healthcare continued to add workers, but at a more modest pace than earlier in the year.

The softening job market may complicate the Federal Reserve's job, since it's also battling stubborn inflation. The Fed may be more cautious about raising interest rates at a time when the labor market appears less stable.

For people who are working, average wages have risen 3.2 percent in the last twelve months. That's likely not enough to keep pace with inflation, however, so workers' paychecks don't stretch as far as they used to.

"Part of the reason that workers are feeling bad about today's job market," Zhao says, is that "a lot of those wage gains have been eaten up by rising energy prices."

Copyright 2026, NPR

Of all the money that funds Minnesota’s public schools, there is a stream of funding that comes from a trust built over 150 years ago.

The Permanent School Fund is an account established in 1858 that funnels dividends from timber or mining sale leases to schools. The bulk of public school money comes from the state and the amount of money spent per student is determined by a formula created decades ago.

On Saturday, a law goes into effect that will add a question on the ballot in November for voters to amend the Minnesota Constitution and increase money going to all schools from that old permanent fund.

It’s a way of bolstering education budgets without increasing taxes, advocates say.

Kirk Schneidawind is the executive director of the Minnesota School Boards Association and said there was a time where schools were taking in $0 from that fund. Now it’s up to around $68 per student and this vote would increase it another $40 per student.

“It's going to help all of our 329 public school districts, our charter schools, as well as our tribal schools,” Schneidawind said. “This money is sitting in this Permanent School Fund and not being utilized.”

Listen to the conversation by clicking the player above.

Have you thought about what will happen to your home, your savings or your treasured family keepsakes after you die?

If you’re leaving it to your loved ones to just figure out, you might be leaving them costly and stressful problems.

MPR News host Angela Davis talks about why estate planning isn’t just for the wealthy, and what simple steps you can take now to reduce expenses and family conflict when you’re gone.

Guests:

• Anisha Murphy is an attorney and founder of Just Law LLC, an asset protection law firm that provides individual, families and businesses with legal tools and resources. It includes a focus on estate, life and legacy planning. She is also an adjunct faculty member at Mitchell Hamline School of Law and the University of Minnesota Law School.

• Nneka Constantino is vice president and senior financial advisor at Merrill Lynch Wealth Management with more than 20 years experience. She also created and hosts a weekly personal finance show on 89.9 FM KMOJ radio.

Subscribe to the MPR News with Angela Davis podcast on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify or RSS.

Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.    

Officials in Richfield expect a drop in the city's tax base — and potential property tax hikes — after the Best Buy corporate campus property value was cut in half.

The city said in an announcement the value of the company’s Penn Avenue headquarters will drop from $63 million this year to about $32 million in 2027. According to the announcement, Best Buy requested the cut, and the Hennepin County Assessor granted it.

Officials said that will lead to a 5 percent drop in the city’s commercial tax base. That could mean increased taxes for other property owners in the city.

“While this is disappointing news, we know that the commercial real estate market has been struggling,” City Manager Katie Rodriguez said in the announcement. “Recovery since COVID has been slow and large employers across the country have been working to adapt. We also know markets are cyclical and that it will evolve over time.”

Commercial and office property values in the area have been declining for several years. Hennepin County reported a 1.8 percent decrease from 2025 in its 2026 assessment report.

The county determines properties’ values based on comparisons to similar properties and the estimated value of the land and buildings.

Richfield’s city council is scheduled to set a preliminary budget and tax levy in September, with final approval in December.

Many people underestimate how much they spend on subscriptions and memberships.

Consumers think they spend around $90 a month, according to one survey. But when asked to actually add up those recurring fees, the average came to $220 a month — more than twice as much.

MPR News host Angela Davis and her guests talk about the rise of the subscription economy, why recurring fees have become so common and how consumers can get a better handle on what they’re paying for.

Guests:

• Demitri McGee is a financial coach, certified housing counselor and youth director at Build Wealth Minnesota, a nonprofit opportunity center dedicated to helping families through financial education, personalized coaching and community-based programs.

• Akshay Rao is a professor of marketing at the University of Minnesota, where he holds the General Mills chair at the Carlson School of Management.

Subscribe to the MPR News with Angela Davis podcast on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify or RSS.

Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.    
 

Sign up for the Planet Money newsletter. The world is confusing. Economics can help.

Alan Greenspan, who steered the Federal Reserve for nearly two decades, through some of the longest economic booms in U.S. history, has died. Greenspan died Monday at his home in Washington. He was 100.

Greenspan was the rare celebrity among central bankers, lionized for his economic stewardship in the 1990s. At a time when it seemed every barbershop had a television tuned to the stock market channel, ordinary Americans hung on the Fed chairman's every word.

His reputation was tarnished, however, by the global financial crisis that struck a decade later.

Greenspan liked to write speeches in the bathtub, but it was his listeners who were sometimes left feeling underwater by the unfamiliar dialect known as "Fedspeak."

Greenspan later acknowledged that he would deliberately garble his syntax to avoid saying anything that might move financial markets.

A notorious exception came in 1996, when Greenspan seemed to suggest that stock prices might be getting ahead of themselves.

"How do we know when irrational exuberance has unduly escalated asset prices?" he asked during a speech at the American Enterprise Institute.

The warning that exuberant investors might not be quite rational sent temporary shivers through global stock markets. But Greenspan's own stock continued to climb.

Greenspan dabbled in jazz

He was married to NBC news anchor Andrea Mitchell, who announced his death in a statement, and the two made a somewhat unlikely power couple. Comedian Jay Leno once joked during a White House Correspondents Association dinner that Mitchell, not then-first lady Hillary Clinton, was married to "the most powerful man in the world."

Greenspan was a talented jazz musician who studied clarinet and saxophone at Juilliard. But it was economics that made him a rock star and a symbol of the widely shared prosperity at the end of the 20th century.

A master of monetary policy, Greenspan led the central bank under four different presidents, beginning in 1987.

Much of his tenure was marked by falling unemployment. Traditionally, central bankers respond to low unemployment by raising interest rates to ward off inflation. But Greenspan broke with that tradition and kept borrowing costs low.

"He was willing to watch and wait as the unemployment rate drifted lower and lower and lower and lower, and we still had no inflation," recalled Princeton economist Alan Blinder, who served under Greenspan on the Fed's governing board.

Greenspan oversaw an economic boom

Greenspan's gamble with low rates paid off, and the economy kept booming for a decade, although critics argue his easy-money policies also helped inflate the dot-com bubble and later fueled the subprime mortgage meltdown.

In addition to low interest rates, Greenspan pursued a light touch on regulation, refusing to use the Fed's powers to crack down on risky lending. His libertarian philosophy was shaped in part by the novelist Ayn Rand.

Greenspan had been a member of Rand's inner circle, contributing chapters to her book, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal. When Greenspan joined the Ford administration as an economic adviser, Rand attended his swearing-in ceremony.

"Greenspan said that Ayn Rand put the moral foundation under capitalism for him," said Rand's biographer, Anne Heller.

Greenspan believed bankers didn't need heavy-handed regulation because their own self-interest would prevent them from taking undue risks. Only after risky banking helped trigger the global financial crisis in 2008 — two years after he left the Fed — would Greenspan sheepishly admit that he'd been wrong.

"I was shocked because I had going for 40 years or more with very considerable evidence that it was working exceptionally well," Greenspan told a congressional committee investigating the financial meltdown.

Greenspan long advocated for a light regulatory touch

The idea that bankers will sometimes take dangerous risks if they're allowed to should not have come as a surprise to Greenspan, however.

Decades earlier, he'd played a bit part in the savings-and-loan crisis, which was a kind of dress rehearsal for the 2008 financial crisis.

As a private economist in the 1980s, Greenspan provided a testimonial for what he called "seasoned and expert" management at Lincoln Savings and Loan, in an effort to ward off regulation of the thrift.

Lincoln later collapsed, costing taxpayers billions. And its boss, Charles Keating, went to prison for fraud.

Economist Vincent Reinhart said it took courage for Greenspan to acknowledge, however belatedly, that self-interest is not always enough to protect taxpayers and investors from the risky behavior of bankers.

"For Alan Greenspan to say, 'Well, maybe markets don't always get it right,' is a reflection on his entire career, not just his tenure at the Fed," Reinhart said.

Ultimately, Greenspan will be remembered as both a maestro of monetary policy and a reluctant regulator. His legacy is shaped by the boom he fostered, and by the bust he failed to prevent.

John Ydstie contributed to this report.

Copyright 2026, NPR

Minnesota's job numbers for May are a mixed bag.

The state saw job growth and a small drop in unemployment, which fell to 4.4 percent in May. But that’s at least partially because fewer people are looking for jobs.

“The unemployment rate going down is a mix of more people getting jobs, but it's also because some people are dropping out of the labor force as well,” said Angelina Nguyễn, the director of Minnesota's Labor Market Information office. “It's hard to really parse out exactly how much each factor is influencing the unemployment rate.”

In May, the state’s labor force participation rate dropped for the sixth month in a row, down to 67.2 percent.

“This trend of decreasing labor force is across the country, but we're seeing a much faster rate of decrease in Minnesota,” Nguyễn said. “It is still too early to figure out why or what's happening, but it is something that we're keeping our eye on.”

Minnesota's job growth outpaced the national rate for the second month in a row, with the state adding 5,400 nonfarm jobs on a seasonally-adjusted basis and almost 20,000 over the year.

Fargo-Moorhead metro lagging in job growth

While jobs were up in the state overall, the Fargo-Moorhead area lost 1,800 jobs from April 2025 to 2026, or 1.2 percent, according to the state’s latest data.

“It is definitely starting to become a more difficult job market for job seekers,” said Samantha Ramirez, a job counselor in Moorhead who helps people find jobs through the state’s CareerForce program. “Some of that is the influence of AI and applicant tracking.”

Generally speaking, the Northwest part of the state is experiencing a weakening job market, according to Anthony Schaffhauser, a regional analyst with DEED.

He said in the 26-county region he covers, the unemployment rate is now higher than in the years before the pandemic.

“Conditions now are more like they were in 2014 to 2015, and that was a period when the labor market was just completing the recovery from the Great Recession,” he said.

Given that backdrop, it can be even harder for job seekers like Nikki Marie Gayton to land work. She said she’s a Certified Nurse Assistant, but her past incarceration seems to be holding her back from jobs in the Fargo-Moorhead area.

“I know I'm a good worker … My past was my past, and it was literally one mistake that I made that is changing my life,” she said. “I’m at a standstill.”

She’s been looking for a job since she was laid off in 2024. Gayton said she’s been getting help from the CareerForce program with things like getting her car fixed so that she can get herself to any interviews she lands.

“I know something will happen for me,” she said. “Just gotta stay focused and just keep trying and trying.”

When jet fuel prices shot up this spring, airlines responded by raising their ticket prices and fees. Now fuel costs are coming back to earth.

But don't expect the airlines to give those price increases back right away.

"If people will pay it, why would you take it back?" said Michael Boyd, a longtime aviation industry consultant. "I mean, if people are willing to pay an extra $5 to check a bag and there's no pushback, don't be silly."

The price of jet fuel is down to its lowest level since the war in Iran began more than three months ago. On Tuesday, the average price of a gallon was $2.80, according to the tracking firm Argus. That's down more than $2 per gallon from the peak in April, though still higher than before the war began.

Travelers have shown they're willing to pay higher airfares, at least so far. And aviation experts say airlines face rising costs across the board, not just for jet fuel.

"We have labor costs coming up. We have operational costs going up at airports," Boyd said in an interview. "So in terms of looking forward to a future of bright low $59 fares, that was on another planet long, long ago."

The high cost of fuel has already hurt airlines' bottom lines, according to Willie Walsh, the head of the International Air Transport Association, which represents airlines around the world.

"We expect average jet fuel prices to be 70 percent higher year on year. And that will add $100 billion to our collective fuel bill this year," Walsh said at the organization's summit meeting in Brazil earlier this month, resulting in "wafer-thin" profit margins for the global industry of just 2 percent.

In the U.S. alone, airlines lost a billion dollars in the first quarter of the year, according to the Department of Transportation.

Even if the Strait of Hormuz reopens to shipping, airline executives say fuel prices won't return to normal overnight. That's particularly challenging for smaller carriers like JetBlue, which hasn't turned a profit since 2019.

"Even if the war were to end, we're not planning for oil prices to snap back overnight," said Joanna Geraghty, JetBlue's CEO, speaking with Bloomberg at the IATA meeting in Brazil. "We think it's going to be a longer, protracted sort of unwind of the escalated fuel prices."

United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby says the airline has been able to recoup less than half of its increased fuel costs so far, but he expects that number to climb as the price of fuel declines. And Kirby predicted that airfares would stay higher into next year.

"The longer this lasts, the higher the probability goes that the pricing increases hold," Kirby said during a United earnings call in April. "If things went back to mid-February normal, I think we get [to] keep 20 percent of the price increase next year."

Average airfares have declined slightly in recent weeks, according to several tracking firms, but they're still up more than 20 percent compared to this time last year.

Copyright 2026, NPR

Earlier this year, a longtime south Minneapolis restaurant stopped putting prices on its menu.

The diner formerly known as Modern Times rebranded itself as Post Modern Times and shifted to a donation-based model during the Minnesota ICE surge. Owner Dylan Alverson said he wanted to create a place where anyone could get a meal, regardless of their ability to pay. Months later, the restaurant is still operating on donations and drawing national attention for its unconventional approach.

Dylan Alverson, owner of Post Modern Times in Minneapolis, spoke to Minnesota Now host Nina Moini about why he’s sticking with the approach and how he’s getting neighborhood input.

Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.

Subscribe to the Minnesota Now podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

We attempt to make transcripts for Minnesota Now available the next business day after a broadcast. When ready they will appear here.

A Twin Cities research and progressive policy group released new numbers estimating the cost of the federal government’s “Operation Metro Surge” earlier this year. An analysis by North Star Policy Action showed the state's leisure and hospitality sector lost more than 4,000 jobs and a loss of more than $70 million in wages during the first three months of the year.

For more about how the analysis reached those numbers, MPR News host Nina Moini talked with the organization’s research director Aaron Rosenthal.

Trung Pham of Pham’s Deli at the Midtown Global Market in south Minneapolis shared his experience as a business owner with Minnesota Now.

Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.

Subscribe to the Minnesota Now podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

We attempt to make transcripts for Minnesota Now available the next business day after a broadcast. When ready they will appear here.

Tomatoes, ubiquitous in everything from fast-food burgers to haute cuisine, are taking on a new role beyond the plate: A nagging reminder of rising costs.

Prices for those red orbs have soared more than any other food product over the past year to cement a spot as one of the consumer headaches du jour.

“The tomato has become a symbol of something much deeper,” says Isaac Bernal Carbajo, a New York City chef who lamented life's “simplest pleasures” falling victim to price increases. “Something as basic as buying fresh vegetables is starting to become a serious financial decision for many families.”

Tomato prices are up about 40 percent over a year ago, according to the latest Consumer Price Index, dwarfing increases for other groceries, including coffee (up 18.5 percent), beef roasts (up 17.8 percent) and frozen fish and seafood (up 12 percent), among other products that have become symbols of America’s affordability squeeze.

A separate inflation gauge released Thursday showed that overall prices increased 3.8 percent in April from a year earlier, the highest reading in nearly three years.

Alongside crop yields, experts blame price increases for tomatoes, in part, on two pillars of President Donald Trump’s second-term policies: the Iran war and tariffs. The war spiked gas prices and increased shipping costs. Meantime, the U.S. withdrew from a deal allowing duty-free imports of tomatoes from Mexico, which grows most of America's supply.

Usha Haley, a Wichita State University economist, says it's “a perfect storm of trade policy, extreme weather and Mideast policy.”

American tomato farmers cheered the withdrawal from the tomato deal last July, saying it would help rebuild their shrinking industry. But for consumers, it's been painful. Though the U.S. withdrew from the Mexico tomato deal in July, it took time to see the impact in the produce aisle, with more imports in late winter and early spring.

When the tomatoes arrived, they were slapped with a 17 percent tariff.

“Tariffs are undeniably a big driver of the price inflation,” says Brett Massimino, a Virginia Commonwealth University business professor. “Because the U.S. relies on Mexico for the majority of its tomato supply, any changes in trade policy can have a large impact.”

U.S. tariffs collected on tomatoes ballooned from just $16,424 in 2024 to nearly $4.6 million, according to federal data, a staggering 27,879 percent increase.

As the cost trickles down, outraged shoppers have pulled out their phones in the produce aisle, shooting videos lamenting costs they said quadrupled, with some vowing to plant a garden to avoid prices of up to $8 a pound. But the impact has been most pronounced for businesses that rely on tomatoes as a key ingredient in their kitchens.

MarginEdge, which tracks prices for restaurants, says grape tomatoes have increased most — 65 percent in just a month — but prices have gone up across all types of tomatoes.

Phillip Coles, a professor of supply chain management at Lehigh University, says prices should drop later in the year when domestically grown tomatoes are harvested. Higher prices, he says, will also “induce farmers to increase planting to meet the demand, but this takes longer because of the lead time.”

Meantime, it's translating to a big hit for businesses like Snarf’s Sandwiches, which puts a tomato in nearly every sandwich it makes.

Wayne Humphrey, chief operating officer of Snarf’s, which operates dozens of stores in Colorado, Missouri and Texas, said cases of tomatoes went from costing him $27 to $93 in the space of a year, piled on top of rising expenses for other ingredients including bread and beef, as well as increased labor costs.

“That single ingredient now costs us more than $1.7 million in additional spend annually,” says Humphrey. “The math is getting harder to ignore.”

The national average for a gallon of gasoline is $4.55, according to AAA; that's a four-year high, unwelcome news for drivers as the U.S. heads into one of the busiest travel weekends of the year.

AAA estimates a record 45 million Americans will travel this weekend, despite high prices for gasoline, diesel and jet fuel.

Gasoline prices have been elevated since the start of the war in Iran, and there's no sign of relief on the horizon. High prices are angering voters and straining household budgets.

In California, which has the highest gasoline prices in the nation, Gov. Gavin Newsom is openly feuding with the oil giant Chevron, discouraging Californians from filling up at its stations.

Chevron and the state have been in a tense relationship for years; Chevron moved its headquarters out of California in 2024 after complaining about state and local regulations, and is currently buying oil shipped through an offshore pipeline that California has attempted to keep shut down. In the latest salvos, Chevron has posted placards at California gas stations blaming state policies for the high prices, while Newsom's office is telling Californians they can get cheaper gas at unbranded stations.

But where does all this leave drivers? Despite high prices, most Americans are unwilling, or unable, to give up on driving. Americans have been logging more miles since the war with Iran started, according to the analytics company Arity, which tracks driving habits.

What can you do to cut costs? We asked the experts for ideas.

Drive smoothly. Pay less

The key to getting the most miles out of each gallon is driving efficiently. That means smooth acceleration, soft braking and slowing down.

Underinflated tires, heavy boxes in the back seat and an unused ski or luggage rack on the top of the vehicle can also make it less fuel efficient.

Some high-performance vehicles require premium gasoline. But if it's only recommended, you can skip it without damaging the car, according to Consumer Reports' deputy auto editor, Jonathan Linkov. "All cars, except the most esoteric supercars or older cars, can run fine on regular," said Linkov.

Are you considering going electric?

Data suggests that higher gasoline prices have many drivers at least thinking about giving up gas-powered cars altogether.

But the data on sales isn't so clear-cut. New-EV sales are still depressed following the abrupt end of a $7,500 federal consumer tax credit last fall. It's also tax refund season, which can push up car sales of all types, compared with the previous month. CarGurus reports that used-EV sales did seem to accelerate in the month of March, and Cox Automotive reports strong prices for used EVs at wholesale auction, noting that rising gas prices "may have positively influenced demand." On the other hand, data from the sites iSeeCars.com showed no appreciable shift in used-EV sales.

It's not surprising to see a rise in shoppers' interest before a rise in actual sales, especially for a purchase as significant as a vehicle. "What consumers are viewing on the site tends to be an earlier indicator than sales," says Kevin Roberts, the director of economic and market intelligence with CarGurus.

But analysts note that high gasoline prices do motivate shoppers to select for more fuel-efficient or entirely electric vehicles — if prices stay elevated for a long time.

An average driver can save $1,800 a year

The more you drive, the more you stand to save from switching to a battery-powered car, says Janelle London, the co-executive director of a nonprofit called Coltura, which advocates against gasoline. "Across the entire U.S., an average driver doing, say, 15,000 miles a year already is going to save $1,800 a year by switching to an electric car," London says. "But if you're talking about a big driver, somebody who does maybe 25,000 miles a year, they're going to be saving on average $3,000 a year by making the switch."

And as the cost of gas keeps rising, she says, "we're seeing the savings just skyrocket up."

Coltura has an online tool that car shoppers can use to estimate potential savings from going electric.

Those savings vary based not just on how much you drive but also on where you live, thanks to differences in the local prices of gasoline and electricity. Yale Climate Connections recently published a map comparing the price of charging with the price of gasoline, by looking at the cost of enough electricity to take you as far as 1 gallon goes in a similar gas car: In North Dakota, driving an EV is like paying less than a dollar a gallon, but in California it's more like $2.70 a gallon.

Or you can crunch your personal numbers more precisely by comparing the cost per mile using your own electricity rates, local gasoline prices and the efficiency of the gas and electric vehicles you're comparing. (The extremely lazy route? Multiply your home's cost per kilowatt-hour for electricity by 10. That's very roughly comparable to how many dollars per gallon you'd pay to fuel your car. The national average cost for home electricity is $0.17 right now, so, ballpark, that's like paying $1.70 for gasoline.)

Consider factors beyond gasoline

If you're thinking of switching to an EV to save money, there are other factors to weigh as well. Maintenance savings can also be substantial — electric vehicles need new tires and not much else. On the other hand, insurance can be pricey. You might also weigh nonfinancial factors, like how much you value the environmental benefits of an EV or the merits of a quiet ride.

Charging is also crucial. Can you charge at home, which is far more convenient and affordable than charging at stations? If so, will you need to install a dedicated, higher-speed charger, which comes with an installation cost, or can you get by with a standard outlet?

The more you drive and the larger your vehicle is, the more likely it is you'll need to add a charger. The Environmental Protection Agency has a calculator that can help with that decision.

Could you get by without driving at all?

Another option, of course, is to pursue alternatives to driving.

But data compiled by the app Transit shows that ridership was steady for most of March and actually dropped slightly in the week ending April 4.

That's no surprise, says Stephen Miller, the policy lead at Transit; the Easter holiday may have pulled ridership down, and gas prices have been elevated only for a few weeks. "Historically, people only make larger changes that show up as a significant shift from driving to public transit if the price of gas goes up — and stays up," he says. Year over year, transit ridership continues to increase overall, although it has yet to fully recover from the collapse in public transit use at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Jerick White, who lives in Houston, bought his first e-bike in March. There were several reasons explaining why he switched from a car to two wheels, but saving on gasoline was one of them. Between the cost of the car, maintenance and gas, he says, "it just became too unbearable, unmanageable and expensive."

He hasn't calculated exactly how much money he's saving, but, he says, it's "a lot of money for sure." One important factor in his decision: White works from home now and lives close to a grocery store and other places where he needs to run errands. Biking around "is very, very reliable if you stay in a neighborhood and you work close by," he says.

If getting an EV makes the most sense for people with the longest commutes, trading out of a car entirely is for the other end of the spectrum: people who don't drive much or take a lot of short trips. Veo, the bike and scooter app, reports that its average trip length is 1.9 miles.

If it works for your lifestyle, White says, biking has benefits in addition to savings on gas. "I feel like a kid again when I'm riding it," he says. "It's very enjoyable." And: "Oh, my goodness, I can avoid the traffic."

Spend more on fuel by cutting more elsewhere

Finally, some folks are willing to spend more at the pump — but cut back elsewhere. High fuel prices were not enough to stop Julie and Vince Rossi from taking their first cross-country road trip in their new recreational vehicle. They sold their house to live in a 22,000-pound RV full time and went on their longest road trip yet, driving from Arizona to Virginia.

Diesel costs even more than gasoline — and its price has gone up faster since the war started — so to afford their now-doubled fuel budget, they're skipping the museums and amusement parks for free attractions. "If we want to continue on this lifestyle, we either look for the lowest prices or we need to cut spending somewhere else," Julie Rossi says.

A previous version of this story ran on April 7, 2026.

Copyright 2026, NPR

As gas prices have spiked again this week, some rideshare drivers in Minnesota say they’re struggling to make ends meet.

Uber and Lyft drivers pay for their own gas. With gas in the state now averaging more than $4.35 a gallon, those costs are up — and driver pay rates have stayed flat.

Said Mohamed drives for both rideshare companies. He typically works during the day, with breaks to stop at home and regular days off. But high gas prices have forced him to change that schedule.

“I’m driving more,” Mohamed said. “From 7 a.m. when I leave my house ‘til I go back home about 7 p.m. tonight, I have to stay.”

Mohamed said he’s spending close to $30 a day on gas. That’s for his hybrid car; he said friends and fellow rideshare drivers with fully gas-powered cars are spending up to $45 or $50 a day.

Uber and Lyft both offer discounts and cash-back deals on gas, which they have increased since gas prices began climbing amid the war in the Middle East.

But Mohamed said the benefits are too small to make a difference. Some of them only apply at specific gas stations. Others require drivers to set up accounts on company-issued debit cards. Mohamed said many drivers don’t want to go through the process to do that, or don’t want to keep their income on a company card.

Mohamed said he’s also been avoiding long rides that take him out of the Twin Cities, because he doesn’t get paid for the drive back without a passenger. But when a driver declines too many trips, the rideshare apps’ algorithms send them fewer options — and often lower-paying ones.

Mohamed is part of a group of drivers organizing with the Service Employees International Union, or SEIU, to advocate for a rideshare drivers’ union. It would require legal action at the state level; drivers are currently unable to unionize because they are classified as independent contractors, not employees. A bill to allow drivers to unionize did not pass at the state legislature last year.

Mohamed said he wants the chance to negotiate directly with the companies — especially when challenges like high gas prices come up.

“The biggest thing that needs to be changed is, the drivers need to be listened to, and drivers need the same protections as everyone that is working,” Mohamed said.

Organizers are looking ahead to this year’s midterm elections in hopes that changes in the legislature — and possibly in party control — could give the group another chance to push for the law.

A new, state-facilitated program called Secure Choice is beginning to automatically enroll small business employees, aimed at giving about 300,000 Minnesotans unprecedented access to retirement benefits.

Secure Choice Executive Director Chad Roberts told Morning Edition that the state’s responsibility to help people save — in addition to social security — for life after their careers eases the burden for the rest of the public.

“That social safety net does not have to reach as far, because everybody has their own safety net with retirement,” he said.

More than a dozen states are participating in the program. In Minnesota, the Legislature approved it in 2023, and a staggered rollout began in January and runs through June 2028 based on the number of employees at a business. The default savings rate is 5 percent.

Roberts said the feedback from businesses and employees has been largely positive.

“Employees can opt out, but right now, we're only seeing 16 percent of enrolled employees drop out of the program, and so to us, that's clear evidence that 80-85 percent of Minnesota workers without retirement want this opportunity to save for their own retirement,” he explained.

While money is tight for many right now, “how hard is it going to be at the end of your working career, when you can't generate more income and you don't have anything to buy gas with, to buy groceries with, to pay rent or mortgage with,” he argued. “And money today invested in retirement is worth much more at the time you retire, and so saving a little now gets you a lot later.”

Gas prices are continuing to climb. On Wednesday, according to AAA, the average price in Minnesota was $4.15. It’s averaging even higher in the seven-county metro at $4.24. You may have looked at the price at the pump recently and wished you had an electric car.

But data shows the number of Minnesotans buying electric dropped by 50 percent in the last few months of 2025. From January through October of 2025, EVs made up 8.4 percent of vehicle registrations in the state. In November and December, that dropped to 3.9 percent, according to the Minnesota Automobile Dealers Association.

Association President Scott Lambert said high gas prices are unlikely to reverse the trend. He joined MPR News host Nina Moini to share his perspective on the EV industry.

Editor’s note: This story was updated to reflect that this interview was from a single perspective. Minnesota Now will continue to cover the EV industry from a wide variety of perspectives.

Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.

Subscribe to the Minnesota Now podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

We attempt to make transcripts for Minnesota Now available the next business day after a broadcast. When ready they will appear here.

The U.S. war with Iran has pushed inflation to its highest level in almost three years.

Consumer prices in April were up 3.8 percent from a year ago, according to a report Tuesday from the Labor Department. That was the biggest annual increase since May 2023.

Prices rose 0.6 percent between March and April.

From gas prices to housing, here are three things to know about the rising cost of living.

Gas prices are a big driver

Gasoline prices have jumped sharply since the war began, snarling tanker traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, a vital corridor for energy shipments. The average price of regular gas is $2.50 a gallon, according to AAA. That's up 38 cents from a month ago. The jump in energy prices accounted for 40 percent of the monthly increase in the consumer price index in April.

Rising fuel costs are affecting other prices as well

When energy costs jump sharply, it can have spillover effects. Air fares, for example, jumped 2.8 percent last month and are more than 20 percent higher than they were a year ago, as airlines struggle with a spike in jet fuel prices. The cost of diesel fuel has risen by $1.88 a gallon since the war began. If that lasts, it could put upward pressure on the price of everything that's delivered by truck or train.

Excluding volatile food and energy costs, "core" inflation was 2.8 percent in April.

Housing prices also contributed to higher inflation in April

Housing costs were also a driver of inflation, jumping 0.6 percent between March and April, but some of that is a statistical fluke resulting from the six-week government shutdown last fall. Government number crunchers were temporarily idled in October, so were unable to collect housing prices that month. That's had the effect of artificially lowering the measure of housing inflation. Tuesday's report provides a kind of catch-up.

Copyright 2026, NPR

President Donald Trump says he wants the gas tax to be temporarily suspended as the war in Iran extends into its 11th week and keeps oil prices elevated.

He told CBS News on Monday morning he wants the tax suspended "for a period of time" and would want it reintroduced "when gas goes down."

Asked by reporters in the Oval Office later in the day how long the gas tax would be suspended, the president responded, "Till it's appropriate."

Suspending the gas tax would require an act of Congress. Currently, the tax is 18.4 cents per gallon of gas and 24.4 cents per gallon of diesel.

Regular gasoline cost just under $3 per gallon on average before the U.S. bombed Iran. Now, the average cost per gallon has soared by more than 50 percent to $4.52, according to AAA.

A cost reduction of 18.4 cents would lower that average gasoline cost by around 4 percent. It would bring the cost of a 12-gallon fill-up down by $2.21.

Blockades imposed during the Iran war have stalled the passage of oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, causing gas prices to spike. Around one-fifth of the world's crude oil usually travels through that strait.

The potential suspension of the gas tax is a tacit acknowledgment from the White House of the toll that high gas prices have taken on American consumers. Eight in 10 Americans say gas prices are straining their budgets, including overwhelming majorities of Democrats, independents and Republicans alike, according to the latest NPR/PBS News/Marist poll.

In addition, 63 percent of Americans say they blame Trump “a great deal” or “a good amount” for those higher gas prices. That includes more than 6 in 10 independents and nearly one-third of Republicans.

Copyright 2026, NPR

It was a busy Saturday for the staff in the workshop at Perennial Cycle Shop in Minneapolis. Mechanics swapped in new tires, checked brake lines and lubricated bike chains.

Luke Breen has owned Perennial on Hennepin Avenue for 37 years, and while spring brings its fair share of tune-ups, he’s noticed a difference this year.

“We’re seeing a lot of repair bikes coming in. People are pulling their bikes out of their garages. Many people come in to get air in their tires and lube on their chains because they are seeing the gas prices going up.”

While gas prices are causing more customers to consider new ways to get around town, Breen hasn’t seen an increase in new bike purchases — at least not yet.

“At what point does the gas price actually push people to buying bikes? I don't know. I can guess, and it's around five bucks a gallon.” Breen said. “We're not there yet. We're at the point where people are just trying. They're worried that it might happen, and they like to prepare themselves by just getting their bike ready to go.”

AAA listed the average price per gallon of regular gasoline in Minnesota on Monday at $4.17, more than a dollar more than the same time last year.

It all comes down to tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.

Tankers moved about 20 million barrels of oil daily through the strait in 2025, according to estimates from the Energy Information Administration, a federal research agency.

Even with a tenuous cease fire between the U.S. and Iran, ships carrying 20 percent of the global supply have stopped moving through the strait.

Paul Sankey is the lead analyst for Sankey Research, an independent energy research firm. He says the U.S. has avoided the worst of it by tapping emergency reserves.

“Our view is that it gets worse before it gets better — a lot worse — because of the emergency inventory running down. But so far, they've centered the situation well,” he said.

Sankey says there aren’t viable alternatives to shipping through the strait. Much of the infrastructure for exporting oil was built to travel through ports to arrive at refineries around the world.

President Donald Trump has said he foresaw the spike, and that it is a sacrifice for toppling the Iranian regime.

But even if everything went back to the way they were before the U.S. strikes on Iran, Sankey says a change in prices won't happen overnight.

“It's all a question of physics. You can't conjure a tanker into a different place. These things move at 15 miles an hour,” Sankey said. “So once they decide to go somewhere else. It takes, you know, a lot of time to get them back to where they should be.”

Metro Transit sees bump in riders

The war more than 6,000 miles from the Twin Cities has commuters searching for alternatives to avoid paying at the pump.

For example, Metro Transit General Manager Lesley Kandaras says April saw 4.5 million rides, a 3 percent bump compared to 2025.

"A lot of factors can be at play. Certainly, we know gas prices are higher this year than that time last year, so that could be a factor."

Kandaras says improved security and expanded services could be increasing ridership.

“We also know transit is a really affordable way to get around our region,” she said. “So it would not be surprising if people are turning to transit as one way to save money — not just on gas — but parking, wear and tear on your vehicle and so forth.”

Breen thinks alternative travel options will become more attractive.

“I think people definitely want to use any type of alternative transportation,” Breen said. “But sometimes, everybody needs a little bit of a push, and so when gas prices go up, that is the kind of little push that that will get them over the edge.”

Breen and Kandaras both say commuters should prepare if they plan to switch up. Knowing the bus lines will help if you’re dealing with bad weather on a bike, and a good bike lock is a solid investment.

And anyone wanting to save that extra bit of money may want to consider it, because, as Sankey said, “The situation looks like it’s going to continue for a while.”

In communities across Minnesota, the angry chorus against proposed mega-scale data centers is growing louder as residents from across the political spectrum increasingly speak out against the giant computer warehouses tech companies are furiously working to build.

In many of those same communities, local officials are weighing large tax incentives to lure the controversial projects, eager for the tantalizing economic investment, revenues and jobs they promise to bring.

That split-screen is playing out in Hermantown, about eight miles outside Duluth, where the city council is poised on Monday to vote on a plan offering an estimated $70 million tax abatement to Google. The company says it will invest up to $2 billion on a massive proposed data center complex in a rural corner of the small northeastern Minnesota town.

In return, Google is offering to pay to extend utilities and infrastructure to the project site as well as tens of millions of dollars to the city and local school district.

The vote is less than a week after about 50 people from a local grassroots group gathered outside Hermantown city hall to announce a lawsuit against the city to block the project. Members of the Stop the Hermantown Data Center group said Google’s offer has not weakened their resolve.

"We are not softened by that and stand steadfast in that this proposed project needs to go to a different site,” said spokesperson Emma Richtman.

Hermantown’s deal

Tax incentives are a common tool cities around the country have used to attract data centers, including in Minnesota.

But as opposition spreads, community residents are increasingly pushing back, “or at least asking … if we're going to provide these tax incentives, what are we going to get in return?” said Tony Pipa, a Brookings Institution Center for Sustainable Development senior fellow who studies the implications of data centers in rural communities.

“I think it's a little bit more of a question mark now than it used to be, but it still is part of the traditional economic development playbook,” Pipa said.

The agreement Hermantown negotiated with Google would grant the tech giant roughly $70 million in property tax relief. Google is proposing to spend $650 million on the project’s first phase and a similar amount on two additional anticipated phases.

In return, the city would receive:

• An estimated $130 million to bring utilities and infrastructure to the proposed site.

• $4.5 million in payments over 20 years

• $40 million to the Hermantown school district over 28 years

Even after giving Google a rebate, the city would still receive about $450,000 annually in tax revenue — more than the city’s five existing largest big box retailers combined.

The school district is not offering Google an abatement and would receive about $30 million in additional tax revenue.

That combined $70 million to Hermantown schools is “a big consideration,” said Chad Ronchetti, who has two kids in the district. Schools around the region are facing budget cuts, such as Ely, which recently moved to a four-day school week.

In a statement, Hermantown schools superintendent Wayne Whitwam said the district recognizes the potential boon the funding could be over time.

“At the same time, it is important to clarify that the school district was not involved in the negotiation process and does not play a role in decisions regarding the development itself. As such, we remain neutral regarding the project,” Whitwam said.

The project would also create hundreds of construction jobs and 40 longer-term jobs in the first phase. The data center would employ about 100 at full build-out, paying those positions about $75,000 annually.

With a market capitalization exceeding $4.5 trillion, Google is the world’s second most valuable company.

"We're talking about a multi-trillion dollar company that wants a tax break. Period,” said Jonathan Thornton, a Hermantown resident who opposes the data center.

But city officials contend that if they don’t offer tax breaks, other communities will.

"We have to remember that this is a competitive project,” said Ronchetti. “This project is just one of many in Google's portfolio of potential projects, and so we have to put a foot forward in order to stand out."

Against those benefits, the city also has to weigh costs. Residents who live near the proposed data center argue the massive development would harm their rural quality of life, ruin property values and create light and noise pollution, among other environmental concerns.

Opponents also accuse project backers of hiding the full scope of possible tax breaks. The proposed tax abatement agreement indicates that St. Louis County — which takes in a larger share of property taxes collected in Hermantown than the city — “is anticipated to also provide a tax abatement in support of the project.”

“The reason they're not doing those in tandem is because they don't want the public to know the real numbers,” said Thornton.

A county spokesperson said the county Board of Commissioners would have to approve any tax incentive, following public input.

The county’s mention in the agreement was surprising to St. Louis County Commissioner Ashley Grimm, who’s been critical of public officials who signed non-disclosure agreements with the data center developer, barring them from discussing it publicly for months.

“It concerns me that the project developer felt comfortable enough to state that there was St. Louis County support for abatement before it was ever publicly discussed or discussed with commissioners,” Grimm said.

Local leverage

Google and other data center developers already receive a state sales tax exemption on their purchases of computers and other equipment. Minnesota is one of 38 states that offer data center tax incentives.

Now local governments across Minnesota are increasingly sweetening the pot.

Rosemount has a tax abatement agreement with Meta for the data center under construction there. And earlier this year Pine Island near Rochester agreed to a deal with Google similar to what Hermantown is considering: tax relief in exchange for infrastructure, increased property tax revenue, job creation and significant cash for schools.

City administrator Elizabeth Howard acknowledged some residents opposed the deal.

“On the other hand, we have residents who want to lower taxes, a community center, a sports/rec center, more ball fields, increased services for residents, a splash pad and view a large company as increased tax base to help accomplish these things,” she said.

But at least one other city is charting a different course.

“We determined that we weren't interested in offering any incentives whatsoever to data centers,” said Lloyd Hilgart, mayor of Monticello, which recently adopted new rules governing potential new data centers that do not include offering subsidies.

"This is something that approached us. We didn't approach them,” Hilgard said. “And if it can work out for us and they want to follow the rules that we've put in place, then I feel that's a win-win for the city."

Hilgart said he's OK if that causes tech companies to locate data centers elsewhere.

Negotiations between small cities and powerful tech giants can seem asymmetrical, said Pipa with the Brookings Institution. That’s especially the case if communities don’t feel like they have many other economic development alternatives. Tax incentives often seem like one of the few levers they can pull.

Pipa said the Googles and Metas of the world “want to be welcomed into communities and should seek to be good partners in building that relationship and investing in that community.”

And it’s important for cities to remember one thing.

“Local officials often have more leverage than they feel like they might.”

The Minnesota Legislature is in the home stretch of its 2026 session and many Minnesotans are waiting to see if they're going to get some relief from high property taxes.

Thursday, the Minnesota Senate Taxes Committee is meeting to work on its big bill that includes $100 million in one-time property tax relief and the House Taxes Committee has a bill trying to do the same, but with a much larger piece of the pie.

The House bill would appropriate $4 billion from the state’s general fund for one-time refunds to homeowners. Republican State Rep. Greg Davids, R-Preston, is co-chair of the House Tax Committee and is sponsoring that bill. He said statewide mandates from the Legislature have caused local governments to raise property taxes.

“They're trying to keep their institutions going. And so if the state can provide some some relief— if we didn't have these unfunded mandates — they'd be in a lot better shape than they are right now,” Davids said.

His bill has drawn criticism from his DFL counterparts who said that wealthier homeowners, who have already received large tax breaks from the federal government, will receive the largest refunds under his bill. Davids said those homeowners also pay more taxes in general.

“That's the old class warfare thing. They're trying to play one group against the other,” he said. “The big houses are supporting schools and counties more than other ones. But that's— I don't want to get in that game. I just want to provide some relief.”

Listen to the full conversation by clicking the player above.

The average price of a gallon of gas in Minnesota jumped 13 cents overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday. The price has remained high nationwide amid the ongoing war with Iran and closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

A gallon of regular gas averaged $3.99 in Minnesota Thursday, up from about $3.80 Tuesday, according to AAA. Many gas stations in the Twin Cities are over four dollars a gallon.

Drivers stopped at 36 Lyn Refuel Station in south Minneapolis, at the corner of 36th Street and Lyndale Avenue, to buy gas for $3.79 a gallon.

“This one has lower prices than most. I know that they do match like match pricing with Costco and stuff. So if I can't make it to Costco, I come here. It's more convenient for the area, but, yeah, a lot cheaper than most places,” Ella Rouillard said.

Rouillard is from Minneapolis and works with unhoused youth at the YMCA Youth and Family Services. She said the price of gas greatly affects the people she works with, who are typically about 18-24 years old.

“A lot of youth are couch hopping or living in their cars. So a lot of youth need gas in order to provide themselves a safe place to stay,” she said.

She said the YMCA has been providing more gas cards for them.

Another driver, Arnulfo Flores, who lives in St. Paul, said gas prices have affected the way he lives.

“I mean, who can afford to put $50 to fill your cars up anymore? My truck, it's almost $100. I'm living on a fixed budget, you know. I'm retired, I'm living on my social security,” Flores said. “It affects how much you want to go out and about and everything.”

The national average is about $4.30 a gallon.

“It's very overwhelming. I'm making do because I don't have a choice,” Natasha Haul said, at a gas station in West St. Paul, where gas is $3.95.

Diesel prices are also inching up in Minnesota, now averaging $5.04 a gallon. That’s up about three cents over the past week.

Megan Horsager is not looking forward to buying more fuel for her farm.

She’s got a large, white, cylindrical fuel tank that sits in the middle of her family’s row-crop farm in Montevideo. While she buys her fertilizer and other planting needs in the fall, ahead of planting season, she opts to buy fuel whenever her tank needs a top-up.

That next refill will happen in June, Horsager said.

"I'm just kicking myself that I didn't price more ahead of time,” Horsager said. “Usually, June hasn't been a bad time to buy fuel, but you don't plan on the global events."

The prices of key agricultural necessities such as diesel and nitrogen fertilizer have soared since the Strait of Hormuz, a vital trade passageway, has largely been choked off amid the war in Iran.

While Horsager didn’t book enough diesel in advance, she is set with fertilizer. However, not everyone is. In fact, a recent American Farm Bureau Federation survey found that about 70 percent of respondents nationwide report they are unable to afford all the fertilizer they need.

And Horsager still worries about what fertilizer costs might be in the fall. Those worries may not be without cause.

What it’ll take for prices to come back

The Agricultural Risk Policy Center at North Dakota State University ran fertilizer price projections under different scenarios, including the Strait of Hormuz opening soon or remaining closed throughout the year.

“We have seen that even in the most optimistic scenario, we're going to see elevated prices on the nitrogen as well as phosphate side that continues on through the fall and moving into 2027,” Agricultural Risk Policy Center Associate Director Shawn Arita said.

Arita added that those prices will be higher than the ones farmers worked with this year and last year. Part of that is because it’ll take time to repair Middle Eastern fertilizer production infrastructure that’s been damaged in the war.

The center’s report shows that the price of urea, a nitrogen fertilizer, will remain 13 percent higher than its pre‐crisis price, even if the strait were to open soon.

It could also take some time before barge companies feel safe to pass through the Strait, Arita said. There are leftover underwater mines through the waterway that the U.S. is working to clear, according to President Donald Trump. The Associated Press reports that Pentagon officials told lawmakers it would likely take six months to clear the mines.

Vessels and insurance companies would likely also want some stability between the U.S. and Iran, Arita said.

“Many of these ships, as well as the insurance companies, are very, very risk-averse,” Arita said. “It's going to take time for them to see how the situation is, to feel comfortable and to have assurances that they'll be willing to re-enter the strait to pick up cargo.”

There is also a growing backlog of vessels that are stuck in the strait. There are about 2,000 vessels stranded in the Persian Gulf, according to the International Maritime Organization. Though some experts say that estimate is high, there is nevertheless a backlog.

“You're not going to see a return to normal for several months, even if the Strait of Hormuz was opened relatively quickly, because you've got to get all those ships out of there,” Michigan State University ag economist Bill Knudson said.

Once the strait opens and oil tankers pass through, there could be some immediate relief for oil prices, Knudson said. However, he adds that relief is contingent on the extent of energy infrastructure destroyed during the war.

“That'll tell us how quickly prices will return to where they were before the war started,” Knudson said. “If, say, a refinery has been destroyed, it's going to take months for it to get back online and start processing oil again.”

The longer the war goes on, the greater the risk of further damage to energy infrastructure, he added, which could further set back oil prices.

On top of that, if nitrogen fertilizer remains expensive next year, Knudson figures some farmers would likely switch from growing corn, which needs a lot of nitrogen fertilizer, to soybeans, which draw most of their fertilizer from the atmosphere. Regardless, if the war extends into the summer, farmers could continue to see higher operational costs eating into their profits next year.

“The crunch on profitability would continue if there's no solution in the next seven or eight months,” Knudson said.

‘It's not panic mode, but it's getting closer’

Megan Horsager, the farmer in Montevideo, grew up on her family’s land but wasn’t a huge fan of farm work as a kid. She went into the corporate world and took a job that, as it turned out, she didn’t like much, either. Horsager missed farm life, so she earned an agribusiness degree, got married in the process and returned to the farm five years ago.

“Every day I feel like I don't know what I'm doing,” Horsager said. “Dad said it would be five years before I felt like I had a handle on anything. It's been about five years, and I have a handle on maybe half of the different aspects of the farm.”

She’s a member of her local sugarbeet co-op, with which she signed a five-year contract. That means growing sugarbeets at a time when the crop’s prices have been rocky.

“I'm required to plant a crop that I'm fairly confident that I will lose money on, maybe at best break even,” Horsager said. “I’m trying to be optimistic, but it definitely puts a damper on the mood.”

Despite the challenges, Horsager and her family remain optimistic. They still feel the joy of planting seeds in the ground and watching them grow. Farming is what Horsager loves, which means it’s “impossible” not to feel optimistic.

For now, she says her family takes each year as it comes and “trusts the Lord for the rest.”

In the meantime, U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins recently told lawmakers that the Trump Administration is poised to draw tens of billions of dollars from tariffs and trade deals to invest in domestic fertilizer supplies. Secretary Rollins added she’s hopeful the Trump Administration will release a detailed plan soon.

It’s likely farmers will again struggle to turn a profit despite several rounds of government assistance, and experts say it wouldn’t be surprising if the government offered yet more aid.

A survey of residents and business owners in Minneapolis and St. Paul finds that workers lost an estimated $244 million during the Trump Administration’s immigration enforcement operation while businesses missed out on $610 million in revenue.

The research from the University of California San Diego’s U.S. Immigration Policy Center is included in an amended complaint that the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office filed Tuesday in an ongoing federal lawsuit in which the state is asking a judge to declare the administration’s actions illegal.

The researchers found that nearly 36 percent of survey respondents in Minneapolis reported missing work, in most cases because their place of employment had closed; the workers lost an average of $2,315 in pay.

In St. Paul, nearly 21 percent of employees surveyed said that they missed work; workers in the capital city lost $1,754 on average.

The researchers gathered data from 1,390 people across both cities who responded to the survey. The study also found that federal agents “frequently engaged in broad, non-targeted stops of residents” and were more likely to ask people of color than white people about their immigration status.

Large majorities of residents in both cities who had encounters with immigration agents said that they are less likely to seek help from law enforcement in the future.

The research team also conducted a similar survey of businesses in Minneapolis and St. Paul using city license lists. Nearly 900 business owners responded.

“A strong majority of businesses reported that Operation Metro Surge had a negative impact on their business,” the researchers write of both cities.

They estimate that Minneapolis businesses lost $445 million in revenue while those in St. Paul lost $165 million. Many business owners also answered “yes” when asked if they took on unexpected debt because of the enforcement operation.

A refund system for businesses that paid tariffs which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled President Donald Trump imposed without the constitutional authority to do so is scheduled to launch Monday.

Importers and their brokers will be able to begin claiming refunds through an online portal beginning at 8 a.m., according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the agency administering the system.

It's the first step in a complicated process that also might eventually lead to refunds for consumers who were billed for some or all of the tariffs on products shipped to them from outside the United States.

Companies must submit declarations listing the goods on which they collectively put billions of dollars toward the import taxes the court subsequently struck down. If CBP approves a claim, it will take 60-90 days for a refund to be issued, the agency said.

The government expects to process refunds in phases, however, focusing first on more recent tariff payments. Any number of technical factors and procedural issues could delay an importer's application, so any reimbursements businesses plan to make to customers likely would trickled down slowly.

In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court on Feb. 20 found that Trump usurped Congress' tax-setting role last April when he set new import tax rates on products from almost every other country, citing the U.S. trade deficit as a national emergency that warranted his invoking of a 1977 emergency powers law.

Although the court majority did not address refunds in its ruling, a judge at the U.S. Court of International Trade determined last month that companies subjected to IEEPA tariffs were entitled to money back.

Not all taxed imports immediately eligible

Customs and Border Protection said in court filings that over 330,000 importers paid a total of about $166 billion on over 53 million shipments.

Not all of those orders qualify for the first phase of the refund system's rollout, which is limited to cases in which tariffs were estimated but not finalized or within 80 days of a final accounting.

To receive refunds, importers have to register for the CPB's electronic payment system. As of April 14, 56,497 importers had completed registration and were eligible for refunds totaling $127 billion, including interest, the agency said.

System requires accuracy

Meghann Supino, a partner at Ice Miller, said the law firm has advised clients to carefully list in their declarations all of the document numbers for forms that went to CBP to describe imported goods and their value.

“If there is an entry on that file that does not qualify, it may cause the entire entry to be rejected or that line item might be rejected by Customs,” she said.

Supino thinks the portal going live will require composure as well as diligence.

“Like any electronic online program that goes live with a lot of interest, I would expect that there might be some hiccups with the program on Monday,” she said. “So we continue to ask everyone to be patient, because we think that patience will pay off.”

Nghi Huynh, the partner-in-charge of transfer pricing at accounting and consulting firm Armanino, said most companies claiming refunds will have imported a mix of items, and not all will qualify right away.

“It’s about having a clear process in place and keeping track of what’s been submitted and what’s been paid, so nothing falls through the cracks,” she said. “Each file can include thousands of entries, but accuracy is critical, as submissions can be rejected if formatting or data is incorrect.”

Patience with the process

Small businesses have eagerly awaited the chance to apply for refunds. Brad Jackson, co-founder of After Action Cigars in Rochester, Minnesota, said he starting compiling records and preparing to enter information into the system the minute CPB announced the launch date.

The company imports cigars and accessories from Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic. Last year, it paid $34,000 in tariffs and absorbed much of the cost instead of raising customer prices, Jackson said.

Last spring, he had a two-week delay in a shipment due to a missing document, so he is being more careful with refund documents, he said.

“My main concern is the turnaround time,” Jackson said. “A refund process that takes several months to complete doesn’t solve the cash flow problem that it is supposed to fix.”

Will consumers see refunds?

Tariffs are paid by importers, and some companies pass on the tax costs to consumers via higher prices.

The system starting up Monday will refund tariffs directly to the businesses that paid them, which are not obligated to share the proceeds with customers. However, class-action lawsuits that aim to force companies, ranging from Costco to Ray-Ban maker Essilor Luxottica, to reimburse shoppers are winding their way through the U.S. legal system.

Individuals may be more likely to receive refunds from delivery companies like FedEx and UPS, which collected tariffs on imports directly from consumers. FedEx has said it would return tariff refunds to customers when it receives them from the CPB.

“Supporting our customers as they navigate regulatory changes remains our top priority,” FedEx said in a statement. “We are working with our customers as CBP begins processing refunds and plan to begin filing claims on April 20.”

Oil prices are falling by more than 10 percent Friday, and Wall Street is rallying toward another record after Iran said the Strait of Hormuz is fully open, allowing oil tankers to exit the Persian Gulf again and carry crude to customers worldwide.

The S&P 500 climbed 0.8 percent as U.S. stocks run toward the finish of a third straight week of big gains, their longest such streak since Halloween. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 678 points, or 1.4 percent, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 1 percnet higher.

Stocks have jumped more than 11 percent since hitting a bottom in late March on hopes that the United States and Iran can avoid a worst-case scenario for the global economy despite their war. The reopening of the Strait of Hormuz is the clearest yet signal for optimism, and President Donald Trump said in a speech late Thursday that the war “should be ending pretty soon.”

The price for a barrel of benchmark U.S. crude tumbled 10.8 percent to $81.28.

Brent crude, the international standard, dropped 10.3 percent to $89.13. To be sure, it remains above its $70 level from before the war, indicating some caution is still embedded in financial markets.

Several times since the war began, optimism on Wall Street has quickly swung to doubt about a possible end to the fighting. That in turn has caused vicious and sudden swings of prices for everything from stocks to bonds to oil.

A strong start to the earnings reporting season for big U.S. companies has also helped to support the U.S. stock market, and several more financial companies joined the list Friday of companies delivering bigger profits for the start of 2026 than analysts expected.

State Street rose 2.9 percent, and Fifth Third Bancorp added 1.9 percent after both reported better results for the latest quarter than expected.

They helped offset an 11.5 percent drop for Netflix, which fell even though it likewise delivered a better profit than expected. It did not raise its forecast for revenue growth for the full year, which analysts said may have disappointed some investors. It also said Reed Hastings, cofounder and chairman of the streaming company, will step down from its board of directors in June when his term expires.

In stock markets abroad, stock indexes leaped in Europe following Iran’s announcement about the Strait of Hormuz. France’s CAC 40 jumped 2 percent, and Germany’s DAX returned 2.2 percent.

In Asia, where trading finished for the day before the announcement, indexes were weaker. Japan’s Nikkei 225 lost 1.8 percent, and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 0.9 percent for two of the bigger losses.

In the bond market, Treasury yields eased sharply as falling oil prices took pressure off inflation. The yield on the 10-year Treasury dropped to 4.24 percent from 4.32 percent late Thursday.

Early spring means the return of warm weather and … taxes. On a recent weekend, Dan and Glynna Courter were enjoying the sun with friends over a picnic of blueberries and Cheez-Its at Birmingham's Railroad Park.

When the topic moved to how they're feeling about their tax refunds, nearly everyone at the gathering responded with a chorus of lukewarm just fines.

The lack of enthusiasm was surprising considering everyone on the picnic blanket received sizable refunds, including about $10,000 for the Courters combined. But Glynna thinks their refund wasn't that much different from last year. The couple withhold the maximum taxes from their paychecks, which helps them avoid the risk of owing taxes and leads to a bigger refund.

"We might go to a nice restaurant," Dan added, after Glynna said they'd use the refund for savings.

This is not the vibe Republican lawmakers were planning for this tax season. The White House had already declared this the "largest tax refund season in U.S. history," and so far it's on track to be, due to the Republicans' signature tax and spending law, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The White House projected the average refund "to rise by $1,000 or more this year."

But that extra refund bump has fallen short of that projection.

So far, the average refund has totaled about $350 more than last year. By early April, the average tax refund sat at $3,462, which is 11.1 percent higher than the same point last year, according to the IRS.

And Americans appear to be shrugging their shoulders at the tax changes. A recent survey by the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington think tank advising on federal policy, found 62 percent of respondents either thought the tax changes harmed them or made no difference. Even among Republicans, only 35 percent said the changes favored them.

"There's a bit of a disappointment in how much those refunds are," said Tom O'Saben, the director of tax content and government relations at the National Association of Tax Professionals. "People are quietly, perhaps, happy but not to the extent where I would call it significant."

Americans who owe taxes could be seeing a bigger slice of the savings

One possible explanation for the lower refunds is that the benefits from the tax law changes could be showing up more for Americans who don't receive refunds, but owe taxes. The IRS data on tax refunds this season does not factor in how much less Americans owed compared to last year.

"The evidence is stronger that more tax relief is relatively flowing to those who otherwise would owe when they file," said Don Schneider, deputy head of U.S. policy at the investment bank Piper Sandler.

But Schneider points out that owing less money is harder to notice than getting cash in hand.

"Getting it in a refund is probably more impactful, more easy to understand than having a reduction in what you otherwise would owe," Schneider said.

Higher-income procrastinators still have to file

Wealthier filers so far seem to have received larger benefits from the tax changes.

"Higher income taxpayers are much more likely than lower income taxpayers to report significantly higher refunds this year," said Andrew Lautz, director of tax policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center.

That's due in part to the increase in the SALT, or state and local tax, deduction cap raised by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Filers can now deduct up to $40,000 for property, sales and income taxes paid to state and local governments. The deduction primarily goes to wealthier Americans who own homes with big mortgage payments.

Since they traditionally are more likely to procrastinate sending in their returns, that could cause this year's average tax refund to grow later on, but likely still fall short of the additional $1,000 mark, Lautz said. "It is unlikely that we will see that kind of boost by the end of this."

Refunds are getting eaten up by higher gas prices

Part of the tepid response to refunds could be related to the extra cash Americans are spending at the pump.

The war with Iran has brought the average price for a gallon of regular in the U.S. well above $4. Data from the Bank of America Institute and PNC shows consumers have continued spending on gas, and depending on how long gas prices stay elevated, all of the benefits Americans received from the 2025 tax and spending bill could go solely to staying fueled up.

"The tax refund season might be very good, but it's also being offset by this price in gasoline," said Michael Pearce, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics.

Bob Jones, a retiree in Birmingham, is satisfied with his refund. He benefited from an extra deduction of $6,000 for a lot of seniors 65 and up. But the war with Iran has him worried about what that means for the price of gas, so he's put it all in savings.

"You need the savings simply for gas," Jones said.

Copyright 2026, NPR

Higher prices are good news for the oil industry — to a point. But they can bite, too.

Crude oil prices were around $70 a barrel before the war in Iran. After the U.S. and Israel attacked, they started swinging wildly, shooting up to nearly $120; with the current ceasefire, prices are between $90 and $100. Some disruptions to supply could take months to unwind even if the ceasefire holds, which has some analysts predicting a prolonged period of higher prices.

A clip from the TV show Landman recently went viral; in it, Billy Bob Thornton, as Texas oilman Tommy Norris, explains that the industry wants crude prices to live somewhere between $60 and $90 a barrel.

"Don't get me wrong — we're still printing money at $90," he says. "But gas gets up over $3.50 a gallon, it starts to pinch."

NPR doesn't usually turn to TV dramas for economic analysis. But Ed Crooks, the vice chair for the Americas at the energy and natural resources research group Wood MacKenzie, says that clip "is exactly right."

"There is a kind of a sweet spot for the oil price, a nice range for it to be in" from the industry's perspective, Crooks says. The war in Iran pushed the market well outside that range.

As a result, the current crisis isn't just a cash bonanza for the oil industry. It's also a cause for industry concern.

A big boost to profits

We'll have a better sense of exactly how much money oil producers may be printing when the publicly traded companies start to report quarterly earnings in the next few weeks. ExxonMobil, which reports earnings May 1, just told investors that it estimates higher prices have boosted its revenues by more than $2 billion.

For now, the stock performance of the energy sector is a pretty good indicator that the industry is thriving with these prices. Since the start of the year, energy stocks have risen some 25 percent, while the S&P 500 has dropped slightly. That's factoring in a drop in oil stock prices when a two-week ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran was announced on Tuesday.

And the U.S., as the world's largest oil producer, reaps a disproportionate benefit from high prices. While producers like Saudi Arabia have had their exports stymied by the near halt of traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, U.S. production is unaffected. American oil companies can sell as much as ever, now at an inflated price.

President Trump has pointed to this, posting, "when oil prices go up, we make a lot of money." And that's true, for some definitions of "we."

Isabella Weber, a professor of economics at UMass Amherst, worked on a paper that found that in 2022, after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the global oil industry brought in some $916 billion in profits. The U.S. was the chief beneficiary, raking in $301 billion, some seven times the pre-COVID average annual profits for U.S.-headquartered oil and gas companies.

Weber says this money, through shareholder payouts, disproportionately flowed to the very wealthy. "We find that 50 percent of the profits in the oil and gas industry went to the top 1 percent richest Americans, whereas only 1 percent of those profits went to the bottom 50 percent," she says.

Meanwhile, when fuel is expensive, everyone who drives or buys goods pays more. The costs of high oil prices are widely distributed, while the benefits are concentrated among a few.

In fact, you can think of high oil prices as a redistributor of wealth, away from the American consumer and toward people who work for, and invest in, the oil industry. This could be a political problem for the current administration, says Crooks, because "a lot more people are affected by the downside of high gas prices than benefit from the upside."

Limits to the windfall

While soaring prices mean more cash flows to the oil industry, the conflict hasn't been all good news for producers. Some of the biggest companies are directly hurt by the conflict, because they have invested in facilities in the Middle East that have been under attack or they have oil and natural gas that can't reach markets due to the reduced traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. ExxonMobil, for instance, estimates that lower production in the Middle East and other disruptions tied to the war are costing it between $1 billion and $1.6 billion this quarter, offsetting much of that $2 billion-plus boost from higher prices.

And even companies that operate only in the U.S. might not benefit as much as you might think.

One reason: hedging. That's when a company locks in a price for its oil months in advance of actually selling it. Hedging provides some certainty in an uncertain market, letting both oil producers and consumers plan their budgets in advance.

Some companies locked down relatively low prices before the war began, back when the global oil market was oversupplied and producers were worried about prices dropping even further. Now they can't take advantage of those prices rapidly shooting up instead.

Based on an analysis of public reports, Jai Singh, head of North America oil and gas research at the consultancy Rystad, estimates that companies that primarily make oil "have hedged at an average floor price of $57 [a barrel], and they've hedged about a third of their production coming into this year."

As a result, he says, "There were some limits to how much of this windfall they could enjoy."

Constraints on new drilling

Another reason companies may not be reaping the biggest-possible profits: limitations on how much they can boost production. Producing more oil would seem like an obvious way to rake in more cash, now that prices have spiked. But drilling new wells takes time. The number of partially completed wells that can come online quickly is relatively low right now.

And there are some serious physical constraints to ramping up production. In the Permian Basin in Texas, the most prolific oil basin in the U.S., a single well will often produce both oil and natural gas. You need pipelines to get that natural gas from the field to the market, and those pipelines are pretty much full right now. Producers might want to drill a new well for the oil, but they can't if they don't have any way to move the natural gas that comes with it. There are other constraints too, including staffing shortages and geological considerations.

There's also intense pressure from investors to make sure any new wells will be profitable in the long term. If companies are going to spend cash on drilling instead of paying it out as dividends to shareholders, investors want to be confident that it will pay off down the line — and if the price of oil collapses, it might not.

After all, Crooks points out, investors have been burned before. For the first 15 years of the shale boom, the U.S. shale industry lost enormous amounts of money by drilling lots of wells that turned out to be less profitable than they'd hoped. "People dug big holes in the ground, poured bucketloads of dollars into those holes and then set fire to them," Crooks says. Investors aren't tolerating that anymore.

So, will drilling a new well today make money for investors? It depends on what the price of oil is like months from now.

And nobody knows what the price of oil will be tomorrow, let alone next year.

Volatility ‘is not good for anyone’

That brings up the third challenge: volatility. Prices have been on a roller coaster since the war began.

Several oil producers declined to comment for this story, but Dustin Meyer speaks for the industry as the head of policy and economics for the American Petroleum Institute trade group.

"This amount of volatility that we're seeing in the marketplace is not good for anyone," he says. "Our industry is fundamentally predicated on making long-term investments, and it's very hard to do that when market prices are so volatile and so unstable."

Well, it's good for a very short list of people, perhaps. Bob McNally, the founder of Rapidan Energy Group, is the author of the book Crude Volatility. He says traders can benefit from volatility — if they ride the roller coaster right, buying low and selling high.

So can storage owners that charge fees for keeping oil in tanks; all that oil being traded in a wildly swinging market has to be stashed somewhere while the deals are struck. And analysts who are kept busy writing about the market gyrations. "And lawyers, because lawyers always seem to do well no matter what happens," he says. "Everybody else is harmed."

The downside of entrenched high prices

But what if prices stop swinging and just stay high for a long time?

That, too, could be bad for oil producers, depending on exactly how high. In the Landman clip, that's what Tommy Norris means when he talks about prices starting to "pinch."

When oil prices stay consistently above that $90 mark, "the economy suffers and inflation rises," Crooks, of research group Wood MacKenzie, says. "Growth falls. Interest rates may go up. People in the wider economy lose their jobs."

Oil demand is typically quite resilient; people need gasoline to go to work and get their kids to school, even if prices make them wince. But a global economic slowdown or even a recession could bring demand sharply down.

Meanwhile, high prices also increase interest in alternatives to oil, Crooks says. That's good news for electric car makers and the environment, but not for oil companies.

A recession and a boom in alternatives to oil are both examples of what the industry calls "demand destruction," meaning long-term reductions in how much oil the world wants to buy.

If global oil prices are high enough for long enough and demand drops substantially, that "puts the oil industry on a weaker footing looking years and decades into the future," Crooks says.

Copyright 2026, NPR

A new report indicates that Minnesota’s homeowner insurance premiums have grown a whopping 34 percent in the past year alone — the most of any other state in the country.

Julia Dreier, the deputy commissioner of insurance at the Minnesota Department of Commerce said the rise is partly because of an increase in extreme weather events in the state.

“We also have higher construction and repair costs, and then we just have a older housing stock here in Minnesota, and those repairs are just more complex and costly,” she said.

Dreier said the best way to mitigate costs is for homeowners to reassess their policies and double-check what is and isn’t covered. Many people unwittingly have policies that exclude specific coverage or have higher deductibles than anticipated.

She also said that Minnesota has programs for homeowners who, if they’re reinforcing parts of their home, can get large discounts on insurance premiums.

Listen to the conversation by clicking the player above.

Global leaders have been scrambling to contain the rising cost of oil and gasoline since the start of the Iran war, which took a record amount of oil off the market when tankers full of crude were stranded in the Persian Gulf and military strikes damaged refineries, pipelines and export terminals.

Hoping to ease some pain for consumers, President Donald Trump and other heads of state have been pulling on various levers, launching more oil on the market in a bid to calm the chaos.

A group of 32 nations that are members of the International Energy Agency began releasing the largest volume of emergency oil reserves in its history: 400 million barrels. Trump is tapping into oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve while lifting sanctions on Russian and Iranian crude and temporarily waiving the Jones Act, a maritime law that requires ships carrying goods between U.S. ports to be U.S.-flagged.

But despite those maneuvers, crude oil surpassed $100 a barrel and gasoline is selling for $4.06 a gallon on average in the U.S. While the stopgaps are helping, they're not adding up to enough oil to replace what's stranded, experts say.

“They're all incremental,” said Mark Barteau, professor of chemical engineering and chemistry at Texas A&M University. "You’re talking about these different patches being at the level of maybe 1 to 2 million barrels a day each, and you’ve got to get to 20, so it’s hard to see those actually adding up to the numbers that are needed. And then the question is, how long can you sustain those?”

Trapped oil

Before the war began, roughly 15 million barrels of crude oil and 5 million barrels of oil products passed daily through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf, amounting to about 20 percent of global oil consumption, according to the International Energy Agency.

In addition to that loss, some oil producing nations in the Middle East have halted oil production because they can't ship fuel out of the Gulf and their storage tanks are full. That's taken about 10 million more barrels per day off the market, the IEA said.

Then there are the eight countries around the Persian Gulf that together hold about 50 percent of global oil reserves. Under normal circumstances, they coordinate closely to raise or lower their output to keep prices steady, said Jim Krane, energy research fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute. Usually Saudi Arabia steps in to bring spare oil to market and calm things down, he said.

“But all of that spare capacity is also bottled up inside the Persian Gulf right now and it can’t get to market either,” Krane said. “So the main emergency response system that we have is also blocked.”

The IEA said in its recent report that “the resumption of transit through the Strait of Hormuz is the single most important action to return to stable oil and gas flows and reduce the strains on markets and prices.”

Barring that, world leaders are grasping for ways to free up more oil.

Limitations of short-term fixes

Some nations have found workarounds to move oil out of the Gulf. Saudi Arabia is using its East-West pipeline, which stretches from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea, to transfer about 5 million barrels per day out of the Gulf, said Michael Lynch, distinguished fellow at Energy Policy Research Foundation, a non-partisan institution focused on energy and economics. But the nation was already using that pipeline to transport oil, so it doesn’t have a lot of spare room to move oil from stranded tankers.

Trump also temporarily lifted sanctions on approximately 140 million barrels of Iranian oil that was already in transit. But that didn’t add oil to the market — it just widened the pool of potential buyers, said Daniel Sternoff, senior fellow at the Columbia Center on Global Energy Policy.

Typically, most Iranian oil was bought by private refiners in China, who purchased it at a steep discount, Sternoff said. But with sanctions lifted, others could scramble to buy the oil, which in turn raises its price to the benefit of Iran, he said.

“As soon as you are moving to waive sanctions on your adversary with whom you’re fighting a military conflict, to do something in their benefit, it just shows you that you are running out of options to try to prevent a rise in the price of oil,” Sternoff said.

The decision to lift sanctions on Russian oil could have more impact, because Russia had been storing unpurchased oil in tankers, Sternoff said. “By waiving sanctions, it will allow those barrels to clear.”

Trump’s temporary waiver of the Jones Act to allow foreign ships to temporarily transport goods between U.S. ports could potentially help ease natural gas prices by enabling companies to more efficiently ship liquefied natural gas from the Gulf Coast to New England.

But experts don’t expect the waiver to significantly impact the price of oil or gasoline. “It’s helpful, but not a game changer,” Lynch said.

Why U.S. oil production can’t solve the problem

The U.S. is a major oil producer, and exports more oil than it imports. But like any other oil producing nation, it can't just ramp up production instantly to fill the void.

“If the U.S. were to try to make up the global shortfall, we would need to nearly double our production,” Barteau said. “We couldn’t drill wells that fast even if we wanted to.”

Increasing domestic production by even 1 million barrels per day, a feat the U.S. accomplished during the shale boom, would be hard to duplicate, Lynch said.

“If we run every drilling rig right now, what happens a week from now when the war is over and the price goes back down $20?” Lynch asked. “People don’t want to develop long-term production based on a short-term price spike.”

Halting exports and using that oil within the U.S. wouldn't bring down gasoline prices either, experts say.

For one, oil is traded on a global market, so events happening halfway around the globe impact prices for everyone.

In addition, the U.S. doesn't produce enough of the type of oil its refineries process. It produced about 13.7 million barrels per day of oil at the end of 2025, according to the Energy Information Administration. And refineries processed about 16.3 million barrels per day that year, relying on imports to fill in the gaps, according to the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM), a trade association.

That's because nearly 70 percent of U.S. refineries are set up to process heavy, sour crude, according to AFPM. But much of the oil produced in the U.S. is light, sweet crude, which was unlocked during the shale revolution.

“They need different crudes than the ones that are being produced right next to them now,” Krane said.

As a result, just 60 percent of the crude oil processed in U.S. refineries is extracted domestically, according to the AFPM. And retooling domestic refineries would cost billions of dollars, the group said. It also would require shutting down the refinery for a period of time, which generally raises gasoline prices.

“A lot of people like the IEA are making the point that this is the biggest oil crisis ever, which is partly true, partly an exaggeration, depending on how you count things,” Lynch said. “A lot of it has to do with how long does this last ... if it goes on for another six weeks we get to be in some serious trouble.”

President Donald Trump expressed frustration Tuesday with allies who have been unwilling to do more to support the U.S. war effort, telling them to “go get your own oil” as the conflict with Iran and its closure of the Strait of Hormuz sent average U.S. gas prices past $4 a gallon.

The president's social media post came after U.S. strikes hit a city that is home to one of Iran’s main nuclear sites, sending a massive fireball into the sky, and Tehran attacked a fully loaded Kuwaiti oil tanker in the Persian Gulf.

The attacks showed the intensity of the war more than a month after the U.S. and Israel launched it. The conflict has left more than 3,000 dead and caused major disruptions to the world’s supply of oil and natural gas, roiling global markets.

Trump, who has vacillated between insisting there is progress in diplomatic talks with Iran and threatening to widen the war, had earlier shared footage of the attack on Isfahan. The central city is home to one of three nuclear enrichment sites attacked by the U.S. in June, and analysts believe much of Iran’s highly enriched uranium is likely stored there.

The war is roiling oil market

Iran’s stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway leading out of Persian Gulf through which a fifth of the world’s oil is transported during peacetime, has driven up global oil prices, as have Tehran's attacks on regional energy infrastructure. That has shaken stock markets around the world and pushed up the cost of many basic goods.

Spot prices of Brent crude, the international standard, hovered around $107 a barrel Tuesday, up more than 45 percent since the war started Feb. 28.

Trump directed blame at U.S. allies like the United Kingdom and France that have refused to enter a war with no clear endgame that they were not consulted on.

“You’ll have to start learning how to fight for yourself, the U.S.A. won’t be there to help you anymore, just like you weren’t there for us. Iran has been, essentially, decimated. The hard part is done. Go get your own oil!” Trump wrote.

He singled out France for not letting planes taking military supplies to Israel fly over French territory, saying the country has been “VERY UNHELPFUL,” and that “The U.S.A. will REMEMBER!!!”

Allies have refused to get involved

The French military has previously said France allowed the U.S. Air Force to use the Istres base in southern France, because it had guarantees that only planes not involved in carrying out strikes would land there.

Spain, which has emerged as Europe's loudest critic of the war, said Monday that it had closed its airspace for U.S. planes involved in the conflict.

Italy has refused permission for U.S. military assets to use the Sigonella air base in Sicily for an operation linked to the offensive in the Middle East, an official with knowledge of the matter said, confirming a local press report.

The denial was issued a few days ago and concerned American aircraft, including bombers, which were supposed to land at the base before continuing toward the Middle East, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

The Italian government later insisted that its relationship with the U.S. is “solid and based on full and loyal cooperation.”

Israel and the U.S. launch a new wave of strikes on Iran

Israel and the U.S. launched a wave of strikes on Iran, hitting Tehran in the early morning. Israel also said it had launched a new wave of strikes targeting what it described as Hezbollah infrastructure in Beirut.

The video shared by Trump appeared to show a massive attack on Isfahan, and NASA fire-tracking satellites suggest explosions happened in a mountainous region on the city's southern edge. Iran has not confirmed the attack.

A satellite image taken just before the June war suggests Tehran transferred a truckload of highly enriched uranium to a nuclear facility about 12 miles from Tuesday's strikes.

Analysts believe the truck — which the image showed going into a tunnel loaded with 18 blue containers — likely carried most or all of Iran’s stockpile of uranium enriched up to 60 percent purity. That’s a short, technical step from weapons-grade levels.

Trump warned this week that if a ceasefire is not reached “shortly,” and if the strait is not reopened, the U.S. would broaden its offensive, including by attacking the Kharg Island oil export hub and possibly desalination plants.

Speaking at the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth would not say if U.S. ground forces would enter the war.

“We don’t want to have to do more militarily than we have to,” he said. “But I didn’t mean it flippantly when I said, in the meantime, we’ll negotiate with bombs.”

Iran hits oil tanker in waters off Dubai

An Iranian drone hit a Kuwaiti oil tanker off the United Arab Emirates city of Dubai, sparking a blaze that was later put out, the Dubai Media Office said. Authorities said no oil spill resulted.

Four people were also wounded when debris from an intercepted drone fell into a residential area, and loud explosions could be heard later from another attack on Dubai.

Air raid sirens sounded in Bahrain, while Saudi Arabia said it intercepted three ballistic missiles launched toward its capital. Loud explosions were also heard in Israel not long after the military warned of an incoming missile barrage from Iran.

In Iran, authorities say more than 1,900 people have been killed, while 19 have been reported dead in Israel.

Two dozen people have died in Gulf states and the occupied West Bank. In Lebanon, officials said more than 1,200 people have been killed, and more than 1 million displaced.

Ten Israeli soldiers have died in Lebanon, including the four announced Tuesday, while 13 U.S. service members have been killed.