Marketplace - Gas vs. gas

Episode Date: April 3, 2026

The war with Iran has driven up the price of gas — as in, the gas we put in our cars. But what about natural gas, like the kind we use to heat and cool our homes? The U.S. is pretty well insulated from a natural gas price spike. Countries across Europe and Asia ... not so much. Also in this episode: Wage growth slows as the economy adds jobs, historic New England country stores pivot to stay afloat, and crude oil futures look a bit funky right now.Every story has an economic angle. Want some in your inbox? Subscribe to our daily or weekly newsletter.Marketplace is more than a radio show. Check out our original reporting and financial literacy content at marketplace.org — and consider making an investment in our future.

On the program today, the week that was, of course, and then petroleum of several different kinds. And look, maybe pour one out for those iconic country stores from American public media. This is Marketplace. In Los Angeles, I'm Kai Rizdahl. It is Friday. Today's one is the third of April. Good as always to have you along, everybody. We are going to dig right in on this Friday because, I mean, have you been following the news?

Heather Long is the chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union. Jordan Holman is at the New York Times. Hey, you two. Hi, Kai. Hey, Kai. Heather, we start with you. We start with the jobs report from this morning for the month of March, 178,000 new jobs. The unemployment rate falls to 4.3%.

Headline numbers. Very nice, very good. Thank you very much. Look under the hood for me, would you? Yeah, sure. So much is moving around the job market. but I think the big picture, if you step back, is we're in a frozen job market, and it's been that way for about a year. And the unemployment rate's been stuck between 4.2 and 4.5%, which, as you point out, not too bad.

But, you know, the encouraging news here in 2026 is if you look across January, February, March, we're averaging about 68,000 job gains a month. And it's more than health care. It's manufacturing, construction, hospitality. But if you look at some downsides, a lot of people left the labor force in March, almost 400,000. And many of those were young people in their 20s, early 20s. And then wage growth is cooling off just as a lot of people are getting hit with these higher gas prices and other commodities rising. Yeah, we're going to go wages in a minute with Kaylee Wells. But Jordan, let me turn for just a second to the Humble American Consumption. You cover retail and corporate stuff for the New York Times.

Retail sales up this week. Consumer confidence, not so bad. I personally find that pretty interesting given, oh, you know, the news. You? Right, yes. I mean, the retail sales does not capture the impact of the war yet. And I think it's still fair to say that when it comes to the pressures that consumers are facing, it's definitely one battle after another.

Like we have the war, we still have, you know, an Oscar reference. We still have the war. We still have inflation. And what we've been hearing from CEOs of airlines, for example, is saying that, yes, the prices are higher. And it will be very dependent on fuel prices. I recently chatted with the CEO of Kraft Hines. And he said, right now, everything's fine. But it really is dependent on how sustained this issue is,

high the oil goes because that will flow through the system and will eventually hit consumers. Well, Heather, let me ask you this then, and I want you to draw on the data you have at Navy Federal. When do you guess, how long do you suppose it might be before the war starts showing up in the data? Because the president the other day said we got two to three more weeks of this. Yeah, it's a really interesting question, Kai. So we're looking every day at debit card and credit card data. And I have to tell you, March still looks pretty good. And obviously people are spending more at the pump, on gas.

There was also a ton of spending on airfares. People got the message that if you want to book a summer vacation, you should book ASAP. And we saw a big surge in spending on airlines in March. But even across other categories, we didn't really see a pullback. The overall spending picture still looks pretty good. good in March. But I think you're right. We can start to see some slowdown at the end of March, and I'm really watching carefully eating out, particularly at fast food, fast casual restaurants. That's the easy stuff to cut back on. Wait, say more about fast casual and eating out stuff,

Heather. It's easy to cut back so people just do it out and they cook at home. Is that the deal? Yes, particularly when you're trying to make up $50 extra a month and spending at the pump. Again, we're seeing a little bit of sign, but not much. of it yet. Right. Jordan, I want to ask about, and I know, well, it's been a while since I've asked you this, but I'm going to go back to the well. We've been relying on consumers in this economy for low these many decades, and yet we keep seeing them come through for us. And how much longer do you suppose this can go on? Because there is the war. There is uncertainty. There is, as we're going to hear from Kelly Wells in a minute, wage concerns, right? Consumers at some point have to say, you know what,

I'm out, man. Forget it. Yeah, and I think this is the important part of there's different tiers of consumers that companies are relying on. I think there's a huge acknowledgement that for low-income consumers, for those $50 where it matters, like Heather was talking about, you cannot tap the well with them. They are trading down. They're looking at the pennies on the dollar, all of that. But where companies are trying to turn their attention to are the business travelers or the higher income consumers. and that's where you're seeing them try to push out new products to people who do have that disposable income. And that is who we are relying on now. And we're not hearing from companies that they're seeing pull back in that way. But we have been seeing people pull for their purchases. So it will

get interesting as we move towards the summer months. And people continue to spend at the same levels that we're seeing at this very moment. Heather Long, that is the case-shaped economy, right that we've talked about so many times. I do want to ask you, though, Heather, about the choppiness that we're seeing in the data that we're seeing in this economy. Not to borrow a phrase from Jay Powell egregiously, but how does one look through all that to figure out what's really going on, right? Looking through the choppiness and the unease and uncertainty. Yeah, it's a really complicated time. Obviously, I think on the job market side, you've got to look at the unemployment rate, which has been sticking right in that narrow.

range, and obviously we're 4.3% sitting here today. But if you dig under the hood, it's just a really weird situation where you've got basically an all-time high for workers ages 25 to 54. So those workers with some experience are doing pretty well right now. But people over 55 and those young people under 25, it's tough right now, no doubt about it. And it feels similarly like Jordan was saying on the consumer side, you know, for the top of the king. families earning over $150,000 a year. Not so bad right now. They're, you know, don't love the pump, but they're doing it and still spending.

But, you know, the middle class, it's the Costco economy. People are really shifting their spending, trying to stretch every dollar. Jordan, last word to you, and we go back to the labor market on this one. It has to be said that there are, for as good as the data was, and for all the things that we've said about at the last six or seven minutes, there are some losers, right? I mean, black unemployment is still very elevated plus 7% or something like that. The long-term unemployed is up as well. So, you know, there's a cautionary tale in there somewhere. Absolutely.

I mean, the black unemployment is always a canary in the coal mine when it comes to this economy. And the fact that it's double what it is for overall unemployment really tells you something. What we are starting to see, particularly with black women, is they've left the, for those who have left the job force, they're turning to entrepreneurship. So maybe this is also a period of time that we'll see a lot of new companies start. But when they're selling to consumers in that shaky economy,

who knows what that equation looks like. Yeah. Jordan Holman at the New York Times, Heather Long at the Navy Federal Credit Union, thanks you too. Appreciate it. Thanks, Guy. Have a good weekend. You too. Have a nice weekend. Quiet as can be on the corner of Wall Street and Broad. Today, markets were closed for Good Friday,

which, given the way things have been going, maybe isn't so bad. I don't know. Nonetheless, we will think of something to say when we do the numbers. With the monthly jobs report comes a whole slew of other data. Of particular interest to us today, as we were talking about just a minute ago, up on top, hourly wages. Compared to last year, up three and a half percent. Not so bad. It's ahead of inflation, right? Month to month, though, since February, hourly worker wages eeked up just two-tenths of one percent.

That is the slowest increase in nearly five years. So short-term, somewhat eyebrow-raising, but as marketplaces Kaylee, Wells reports, economists are content to just wait and see what happens. Yes, this month looks bad for wage growth, but let's remember it's been declining for a while now after the inflationary post-pandemic high. And it's just one month. The data doesn't really point to a sharp deterioration. Daniel Jow, chief economist at Glass Door, says slowing wage growth makes sense in a slow job market. Gross hires are very low by historical standards. And so it's very hard for

people to go and find a better paying job on the open market. The bigger concern isn't that wage growth is slowing. It's that it's slowing while inflation is creeping up, says economist Courtney Schupert at macro policy perspectives. And that's a hit to disposable income and a hit to consumer purchasing power. Because if things you have to buy, like food and electricity, go up faster than your wages, your actual purchasing power goes down. So you're maybe spending more on gas and maybe.

Maybe you have to offset your consumption elsewhere in your monthly budget. And inflation is expected to get worse because of the war in the Middle East. Joe Broussela, chief economist for the consulting firm, RSM, says it's unleashed a prodigious oil and energy shock. Should the war continue, there's a chance that real wage growth could go from slowing, noticeably, to outright contraction. That's when the rate of inflation exceeds the rate of job growth. So industries that rely on discretionary spending, hotels, restaurants, leisure could weaken right at the time of year that they would be taking off.

And the war in Iran for American households may mean it's staycation rather than a vacation this year. Just how high inflation will climb after the war won't show up until fresh consumer price index data gets released next week. I'm Kaylee Wells for Marketplace. Gasoline in this country right now for day. $0.9 a gallon, that's the national average, says AAA. The U.S. oil benchmark, $111 a barrel. Thank you, straight of Hormuz. But the other high-profile hydrocarbon that comes from that part of the world, natural gas, prices here are relatively flat while they have spiked roughly 70%, 70%, over in Europe and in Asia. Marketplaces Elizabeth Troval explains why the United States is mostly protected from the natural gas supply shock, but not the oil. shock. The war has disrupted roughly 20% of the world's liquefied natural gas and crude oil.

Two vital commodities both abundantly produced here in the U.S., says Rice University's Ken Medlock. The U.S. is actually the largest producer of crude oil and natural gas on the planet. But crude oil and natural gas have a really important differentiator. Crude oil and petroleum products are liquids. Because of that, that they're actually very easy to put on vessels and move around the world. Being so easy to move around is why crude oil is a truly global commodity and why the supply shock abroad is driving up everyone's prices. But natural gas is different.

It's a gas. And that gas needs to become a liquid to move across international waters. When you get to liquefied natural gas, you actually have to cool methane down to negative 200, 160 degrees Fahrenheit, so cryogenic, so that it becomes a liquid. The U.S. has a limited amount of that liquefaction infrastructure, says Tom Seng with Texas Christian University. We are constrained by the ability of our export facilities, specifically the LNG export facilities, to provide any additional natural gas that other countries need. Even if the U.S. wanted to export more natural gas to Europe or Asia, it doesn't.

just can't. And it is almost one of those, sorry guys, there's no price at which we can increase what we're doing presently because you can't overnight build the liquefaction facilities. So natural gas prices and supply in the U.S. are insulated from the crisis in the Middle East. That is shielding the U.S. from challenges happening abroad, says Jameson Cochland with natural gas intelligence. In Europe right now, the energy ministers have asked to scale back energy consumption, Asia has scrambled for extra cargoes and they're taking a hard look at efficiency measures. But consumers here don't have to worry about that. Can Medlock again? You're not going to see higher peak prices for electricity, for example,

and we're approaching the summer when air conditioning bills go up. Cheaper natural gas prices are a silver lining as consumers here grapple with higher diesel, gasoline and jet fuel. I'm Elizabeth Troval for Marketplace. Coming up. There's a lot of emotion that gets evoked with these stores. Old-time country stores in the modern economy. But first, let's do the numbers. U.S. and European markets closed today for the Good Friday holiday, but for the week ending Thursday, that is the four days gone by. The Dow was up one and two tenths percent. The NASDAQ grows two and two-tenths percent. The NASDAQ grows two and two-tenths. The S&P 500 gained one and six-tenths of one percent. American spending on Easter is expected to reach a record $24.9 million this year. That's from the National Retail Federation. It's a budget of about $195 per person. 92% of those surveyed are planning to buy candy, 64% gifts, 51% clothing. You're listening to Marketplace.

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More at QuickBooks.com slash workforce. That's quickbooks.com slash workforce. This is Marketplace. I'm Kai Risdahl. We've been talking about the price of crude oil nearly daily of late, both the global benchmark, Brent North Sea, going today for a bit more than $109 a barrel, and West Texas intermediate. That's the U.S. standard price today, as I said a minute ago, at $11 a barrel. The thing I want to point out, though, is that that price gap, with the global benchmark cheaper than the U.S. standard, is exactly the opposite of how things usually go.

West Texas is usually less expensive than Brent. So we have called Tom Closer. He's the chief energy advisor at Gulf Oil to help explain. Tom, thanks for coming on the program. Good to be here. Could you just briefly explain the difference, like physically between Brent, North Sea, Crude, and West Texas intermediate? Sure. There's not really much difference in the spec. They're all suitable to make gasoline and diesel. But they trade in different months. And right now we're trading WTI for May delivery

and we're trading Brent for June. And believe it or not, that difference. difference of month has, you know, difference of tens of dollars a barrel in the price. But right now, the thing to remember about crude is everybody needs it now and they're going to pay $10, $20, $30 more for it now than what sometimes the futures market might indicate. So let's go there for just a second and briefly. The difference between a spot price, which is what people are paying to get it now and these future prices, what usually gets quoted. That's actually affecting the market right now, that difference, isn't it? Absolutely. I mean, yesterday we saw the highest price ever paid in the North Sea. It's $142 a barrel. Say, wait, sorry, sorry. Say that again, $142 a barrel. Yeah, $142 a barrel.

The actual physical prices for spot, you know, they call them wet barrels, and those prices are much, much higher than the futures numbers you see. Gotcha. Okay, so on the futures numbers, usually what happens is there's a spread between West Texas on the low end and Brent on the high end. Why do they trade futures specifically differently that way? Well, it has vagaries in the way that it's delivered. And in WTI, they have to make it available in Oklahoma around the 20th of month. For North Sea crude, it trades out further because they have to schedule the crude so far in advance. and normally WTI is cheaper than Brent, but right now if you were looking at the same month,

Brent is much more expensive, and the physical prices for both crudes are way more expensive than what you're seeing in futures markets. Right. Do you read anything into the fact that the usual spread between West Texas on the low end and Brent on the high end in the futures market is now inverted and that Brent is cheaper in West Texas is more expensive, or is that nothing to think about? It's really a little bit misleading, and it's just incredible. But, you know, it used to cost just a few dollars to send WTI from, let's say, the Gulf of Mexico to Europe.

Nowadays, it probably costs about $15 to $20 of our own. So you've got incredible freight prices around the world right now. The biggest winners in this is. entire enterprise are the people that own tankers. Hmm. Okay, spitball this for me. We were talking before we turned the microphones on. You've been doing this for almost 50 years now.

Yeah. Apply that knowledge to this situation and tell me what the next, I don't know, six months in the energy economy looks like. You know, it's tough to really pick it for six months. I've been doing this for about 50 years. And this by far is the greatest loss of the energy. of actual physical barrels that we've ever seen. Unprecedented.

And quite frankly, to figure out the price three or six months from now is really kind of a mathematical abstraction. The people that I listen to and that I watch for this really believe that we're possibly going to $150 to $180 a barrel. There's even a case that could be made for $240, which would really knock, you know, the world could go through recession without question. without any question at all. Tom Closie, he's at Golf Now, been doing this for a very long time. Tom, thanks a lot. I appreciate your insights. Nice to be here. Have a great weekend. Even if you've never been to New England, you've probably at least seen pictures of the country stores that are so iconic in that part of the country.

They've historically been gathering places and community centers and old-timey convenience stores all rolled into one. But they've struggled as big grocery chains and big box stores have become the norm. So they are in. innovating is Jackie Harris from New Hampshire Public Radio reports. Back in the day, meaning 100 or even 200 years ago, a town's country store was the nearest place for miles where you could buy nails, eggs, and a cup of coffee, all while catching up with your neighbors. When telephones first came out, sometimes the country store was the only place you could make a call. There's a lot of emotion that gets evoked with these stores for the town, for people growing up of what they remember. Beth Richards owns the barrel and basket in Hopkinton.

Though ownership and names have changed, there's been a store of some kind at the site since 1790. The original wood beams are still in place, and Richard sells penny candy and local maple syrup. Both locals and tourists expect that cozy, nostalgic atmosphere when they come in. That is something that, as an owner, I need to balance with what are the economic realities and how things have changed. in the world. No one has to go to the store to make a call anymore. And it's often just as easy to grab a snack or whatever you need at your local gas station. So Richards is adapting. This is our production area for the meal kits. This is where we are modern. So meal kits go out and get delivered. In addition to the meal kits, she's also started an online ordering option for customers.

She has to carefully balance expectations from the past and the economic realities of the present. Richard says her profit margins are tight, sometimes as low as half a percent. For another struggling general store in Harrisville, New Hampshire, the solution was to get out of the for-profit realm altogether. You know, we're a historic preservation organization, so running a general store wasn't the original plan. John Knight is the executive director of historic Harrisville, a nonprofit that works to preserve the town's historic buildings. It bought the Harrisville General Store in 2008 and hired a manager. to operate it like any other shop. But the nonprofit also runs a campaign each year, raising $40,000 to $50,000 specifically for the store.

That brings the bottom line to about zero at the end of the year. And since we're a nonprofit, if we're breaking even and serving a community purpose, then that's really considered a success for us. Of course, most country stores operate on a more traditional for-profit model. Demaris Graham and her sister, Mariana Gibaldi, are planning to rebut. opened the Gilsome Village store in a couple months. The last owner closed it a few years ago, but it first opened in the 1800s. This is Graham. I live right down the street and I drive past the store every day. It's just been sitting empty. So when I saw the forensic sign, I thought, this is what I meant to do. The sisters plan to stock basic grocery and convenience items,

like milk and toilet paper. The area is rural. Some people in the region have to drive an hour-round trip to get to a grocery store in the nearest city. Logistically, it's easier to have a general store right down the street that you can get all your essential stuff at. But you can also chat with neighbors and everyone knows everyone. And to me, it's just deeper than going in and out of a store. Graham is counting on what was true 200 years ago to still be true today. There's no need to schlep to the big city when you can just stop by your local country store. I'm Jackie Harris for marketplace. This final note on the way out today in which maybe it's just me, but this seems icky. SpaceX, as you perhaps heard, has filed for its initial public offering. Details TBD probably

coming in June. High-powered IPOs like this are big business for the big Wall Street banks that help bring companies to market. But, and I saw this in the New York Times today, if they want a slice of what could proved to be the biggest IPO Wall Street has ever seen. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is requiring those banks as well as law firms, auditors, and pretty much anybody else working on it

to buy subscriptions to GROC, which is Musk's sometimes oftentimes troubled artificial intelligence chatbot. Those subscriptions run to the tune of millions or tens of millions of dollars. Icky, right?

Our theme music was composed by DJ Leatherman Marketplace's executive producer is Nancy Fargolly. Joanne Griffith is the chief content officer. Neil Scarbrose is the vice president and general manager. And I'm Kai Rizda. I'll have yourselves a great weekend, everybody. We'll see you back on Monday, all right? This is APM.

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