Before Feb. 28, Kareem Sawadogo paid about $40 to fill up his tank. Now, it’s over $65, said Sawadogo, a driver for both Lyft and Uber.
And if he’s driving full time, which is 40 to 60 hours a week, he must fill up daily. Combine the higher cost of gas with the rising prices of auto insurance and car maintenance, and it seems cheaper to just park his car.
“If you do the math, 30 times seven, that extra is a lot of money,” said Sawadogo, who’s taken on another job — organizing for the Colorado Independent Drivers United, which estimates there are 41,000 ridesharing drivers in the state. “I cannot afford to drive right now.”
Sawadogo has a number of other issues with ridesharing companies. But one thing in common with businesses owners and labor union leaders during a roundtable Monday was feeling a little helpless in dealing with the financial pain to a worker’s pocketbook. Gas prices, nearing $4.50 a gallon average in Colorado, are much more difficult to absorb when one’s income is well below the state’s median household income of about $95,000.
“It’s not just fuel,” said Shaun Egan, chairman and CEO of Iron Woman Construction & Environmental Services in Commerce City. “We have an affordability crisis. Whether it’s groceries or fertilizer or homes, we have unaffordability. … Our tires have gone up, our lubricants have gone up. Every aspect of our operation has gone up. But more so, it’s the employees that we have that are being attacked. Our workers are paying more to get to work than they did before.”
Gas prices shot up after Feb. 28 when the U.S. strikes on Iran began, causing energy and oil prices to increase due to disruptions for ships transporting oil through the Strait of Hormuz in the Middle East. Nearly 60 days later, the situation continues to be touch and go.
The average price for a gallon of regular gas in Colorado was $4.44 on Monday, 2 cents lower than the U.S. average, according to roadside travel company AAA. That’s 16% higher than a month ago and 45% higher than a year ago.
Monday’s price for regular gas was 51% higher than the price before the war.
Prices were higher on the Western Slope, with Vail posting the highest price per gallon at $4.70. The lowest was recorded in Durango, at $4.27. The state’s highest average price was in June 2022, at $4.92 a gallon.
It’s just more money shelled out by consumers and small businesses, said U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper, who convened the roundtable to listen to the tales of how higher prices are impacting Coloradans.
“Everybody’s got to get to work and all of a sudden, they just took a pay cut because of this war,” Hickenlooper said. “This is probably the worst time you could have picked to create a confrontation that has the effect of basically locking down the world’s energy production. And it’s the first time many of us have seen in our lifetime that it affects everybody.”
Diesel prices are even higher. In Colorado, the average price for a gallon of diesel fuel was $5.51 on Monday, up from $3.33 a year ago.
The higher costs are aggravating the trucking industry, which is in its third year of a freight recession as last year’s high tariffs on imports resulted in fewer goods being moved across the country, said Greg Fulton, president and CEO of the Colorado Motor Carriers Association.
He said he’s seeing thousands of companies struggling trying to afford not just the cost of gas — which he said has ballooned from $750 to fill a truck to $1,500 — but also truck insurance that “has gone off the rails.”
For Uber drivers like Sawadogo, the company requires contractors to have personal automobile insurance on top of commercial insurance provided by Uber at a cost. Lyft and Uber said they added a 60-day “driver relief” program in March to offset some of the cost of higher gas prices.
Lyft drivers with the Lyft Direct business debit card can get an extra 1%-10% back on fuel purchases plus additional discounts through a partnership with the Upside mobile app. Uber offers similar discounts at Shell gas stations and for drivers with the Uber Pro Mastercard. The special discounts end May 26.
But as Sawadogo said, it’s not just the current spike in fuel prices, though that’s been extremely difficult for local drivers.
“At this point, I would rather be an employee knowing that I will get a minimum,” he said. “Right now, it’s the first time I’m seeing Uber drivers who cannot afford their own insurance.”