Family costs by state

What moved this week (as of Oct 15, 2026)

• Texas · Gas: Gas fell 9.5¢ in a week to $3.779 a gallon in Texas
• Texas · Air: Air in Dallas reached “unhealthy for sensitive groups” — the week's worst hour was 115 on the US AQI (Oct 5–11, 2026)
• Georgia · Air: Air in Atlanta reached “unhealthy for sensitive groups” — the week's worst hour was 113 on the US AQI (Oct 5–11, 2026)

National rates

Compare the nine states

Gas for North Carolina, Georgia and Virginia is EIA's Lower Atlantic average, and for New Jersey and Pennsylvania its Central Atlantic average: EIA publishes no weekly price for those states. Rent is HUD's two-bedroom Fair Market Rent for one named area per state; air is the week's worst hour at one city, from a model.

How this page works

What each figure is

Gas: the U.S. Energy Information Administration's weekly average retail price of regular gasoline (all formulations), surveyed every Monday. EIA publishes a weekly price for Texas, California, Florida and New York; for the other markets we show EIA's region and say so — North Carolina, Georgia and Virginia read the Lower Atlantic (PADD 1C), New Jersey and Pennsylvania the Central Atlantic (PADD 1B).

Electricity: EIA's average retail price for homes (the residential sector), statewide, in cents per kilowatt-hour — total revenue divided by kilowatt-hours sold, so delivery and taxes billed by the utility are in it. Monthly, about two months behind.

Rent: HUD's Fair Market Rent for a two-bedroom home in one named area per state — the core of the state's largest metro (Charlotte, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York City, Newark, Miami, Atlanta, the Washington area for Virginia, Philadelphia). It is HUD's 40th-percentile gross rent (rent plus basic utilities) for a standard unit, set once a year for a fiscal year that starts October 1.

Mortgage rates: Freddie Mac's Primary Mortgage Market Survey, the national average for 30-year and 15-year fixed-rate purchase loans, published Thursdays (we read it from FRED, the St. Louis Fed's database). The same figure for every state.

Car loans: the Federal Reserve's G.19 rate on a 60-month new-car loan at commercial banks, national, published once a quarter (via FRED).

Air: the U.S. Air Quality Index, hour by hour, from Open-Meteo's air-quality model (Copernicus CAMS) at one city per state — a model, not a monitor reading. The week's figure is its worst hour, Monday to Sunday; it is the one figure on this page we compute.

Exactly as published

Every figure carries the digits its source publishes — gas to a tenth of a cent, electricity to a hundredth of a cent, rates to two decimals, rent to the dollar — and is never rounded, adjusted or blended with another source. Each one links to its source and names the period it describes.

How we decide what moved

Each figure is compared with the previous reading of the same series: last week's gas and mortgage rates, last month's electricity, the previous quarter's car-loan rate, HUD's previous year for rent, last week's air. A move becomes a headline only when it clears a line set in advance; the gas and mortgage lines are the ones our Markets page uses.

Gas: 2% or more from the week before.

Electricity: 3% or more from the month before.

Rent: 3% or more from HUD's previous year.

Mortgage rates: 0.10 pt or more in a week, or the highest or lowest in 26 weeks or more.

Car-loan rate: 0.25 pt or more from its previous reading, or the highest or lowest in 26 weeks or more.

Air: the week's worst hour at 101 or above (unhealthy for sensitive groups) or 151 or above (unhealthy) — the EPA's own categories.

A change that is zero at the precision the source publishes is “flat”; a move smaller than its line is “little changed”. A “highest since” claim reaches back at least three months. For the rates it is read from the source's whole history (Freddie Mac's survey goes back to 1971); for everything else, from the two years of readings we keep — and when the record is older than that, it says “since at least”.

When it updates

We read every source twice a week: Tuesday morning, after EIA's Monday gasoline release (Tuesday's, after a federal holiday), and Thursday afternoon, after Freddie Mac's noon mortgage survey.

Each figure keeps its own date: gas, mortgage rates and air are weekly, electricity monthly, the car-loan rate quarterly, rent yearly. “Updated” is the last time we checked the sources.

What these figures are not

Not a quote: mortgage and car-loan rates are national averages for borrowers with strong credit, and your rate depends on yours.

Not your bill: electricity is a statewide average price, and your usage sets the bill.

Not an asking rent: HUD's figure sits below the middle of the market by design.

Not a monitor: the air figure is a model's estimate for one city, not a reading from the nearest monitor.

Sources

• U.S. Energy Information Administration — Gasoline and Diesel Fuel Update — Gas, weekly (Public domain)
• U.S. Energy Information Administration — Electric Power Monthly, Table 5.6.A — Electricity, monthly (Public domain)
• U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development — Fair Market Rents — Rent, yearly (Public domain)
• Freddie Mac — Primary Mortgage Market Survey (via FRED) — Mortgage rates, weekly
• Federal Reserve — G.19 Consumer Credit (via FRED) — Car-loan rate, quarterly (Public domain)
• Open-Meteo — Air Quality API (Copernicus CAMS) — Air quality, hourly (CC BY 4.0)