Gas Prices in 1990

The average price rose 13.7% in 1990, to $1.14 a gallon, and 7.9% after inflation, to $2.81 in 2025 dollars. It returned the annual average to its 1983 level at the pump.

Iraq invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990, and an embargo on exports from both countries followed. Crude oil prices roughly doubled within three months before easing late in the year. Because the invasion came in the second half of the year, the annual average understates the size of the increase in the fall. The Department of Energy made a test sale of 3.9 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve between September and December.

Two federal laws signed in November also affected gasoline. The Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990 raised the federal gasoline tax by 5¢, to 14.1¢ a gallon from December 1, 1990. The Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 required reformulated gasoline in the areas with the worst ozone pollution from 1995 and oxygenated gasoline in winter in areas with carbon monoxide problems. A recession began in July 1990 and ended in March 1991, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research.

In 2025 dollars, 1990 averaged $2.81, more than any other year of the 1990s. It still ranks only 36th-highest in the full record, and its real price is almost identical to that of 1973 ($2.81), the year the first embargo began. The first year of the weekly series, 2000, came in slightly lower at $2.78.

Looking ten years back and twenty years ahead from 1990 gives opposite answers. Against 1980 the pump price was 7.3% lower and the real price 41.6% lower. By 2010 the pump price had risen 143.9% and the real price 46.1%. At the pump, 1990 ranks 34th-highest. The ten-year step to 2000 shows the two measures parting: the nominal average rose 30.1% while the real one eased 1.3%.

Georgia ($1.03) and California ($1.07) had the two lowest state averages. Delaware, the second-cheapest state in 1977, was the third most expensive in 1990 at $1.28, behind Hawaii and Maryland and a fraction of a cent above the District of Columbia. Missouri and Wyoming were third and fourth from the bottom. Hawaii’s $1.46 put it 32.4¢ above the national average of $1.14.

Georgia at $1.03 and Hawaii at $1.46 set the state range for 1990, a gap of 43.4¢ between the lowest-priced and highest-priced state. In 35 of 51 states, counting D.C., the 1990 average was above the U.S. average of $1.14.

The national figure is an approximation. Before 2000 it is the EIA State Energy Data System average for all grades of motor gasoline, taxes included, and the site holds no weekly data for 1990.

The year before, 1989, came in at $1.00. The step up to 1990 was 13.7% at the pump, and the 1991 average of $1.12 was a 2.1% decrease from 1990. In constant 2025 dollars the 1991 change was a fall of 6.0%.

Ranked across 56 complete years on record, 1990 holds 35th-highest at the pump. In 2025 dollars it is 36th-highest and 21st-lowest, at $2.81. The highest U.S. annual average in those dollars is $5.08, set in 2012.

Back in 1980 the pump average was $1.23. The constant-dollar average for 1990 was 41.6% lower than the 1980 figure in the same dollars.