Gas prices are the cheapest this Thanksgiving holiday week since 2015, according to AAA.
The national average is at $2.10, with gas prices in Manhattan trending around $1.91 most places. Five years ago the national average was about a nickel cheaper at $2.05. This year, nearly half of all states are seeing gas prices anywhere from 50 to 75 cents cheaper than a year ago.
AAA spokesperson Jeanette Casselano says typically, cheaper gas prices are an incentive for people to travel during a holiday weekend, but that’s not the case this year.
“AAA forecasted a decrease in Thanksgiving travel year-over-year due to increasing COVID-19 positive case numbers, renewed quarantine guidelines and the latest CDC guidance. All of this has prompted Americans, who had plans to travel, to reconsider spending the holiday at home,” she said.
Based on October forecast models, the agency says it would have expected about 50 million Americans to travel for Thanksgiving, down from 55 million in 2019, but they actually anticipate that number will be even lower.
