Eight months into the war in Iran, the average American household is nearly $2,000 worse off, according to economist Mark Zandi. This adds a fresh economic pressure as the midterms approach. By my calculation, that is what the Iran war has cost the average American household since the war began nearly eight months ago.
Nationwide, that adds up to $265 billion," Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, wrote on social media. That is seven times more than what Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth told Congress the war had cost the nation between February 28, when the U.S. and Israel launched joint strikes on Iran, and late July. Asked by Democratic Senator Dick Durbin about how much the war was costing the nation, Hegseth gave the Senate Appropriations Committee a figure around $37.5 billion.
He also told senators the Pentagon would have needed another $67 billion—nearly double the previous bill—for further operations in the Middle East. But Hegseth’s figure covers only the direct military cost of the war. For American households, the price has been far higher, as the conflict’s ripple effects through global markets, particularly oil, have pushed up inflation and everyday costs.
Newsweek contacted Zandi, the Pentagon and the White House for comment by email on Tuesday morning and is awaiting responses. Higher energy costs—including gas and diesel at the pump—are contributing most to the additional costs faced by Americans because of the war in Iran. "A gallon of regular goes for $4.37, up from just under $3 before the war.
Diesel is above $6, and jet fuel has nearly doubled. As winter approaches, the much higher price of home heating fuel is also adding to the costs," Zandi wrote on X. As of Tuesday morning, the national average gas price was $4.34 per gallon, according to the American Automobile Association (AAA), while diesel went for $6.28 per gallon.
Before the war in Iran started, causing the disruptions in global oil supply that have driven up energy prices across the world, gas prices had finally fallen below the $3 per gallon mark, for a national average of $2.98 per gallon. The average diesel price was below $4 per gallon. Oil analysts have told Newsweek that gas and diesel prices will not return to normal levels until the Strait of Hormuz, where one fifth of the world’s oil used to transit, reopens.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
