3 ways the Iran war is hitting Americans' pocketbooks

MoneyWatch 3 ways the Iran war is hitting Americans' pocketbooks .chip { background-image: url('/fly/bundles/cbsnewscore/images/chip-bgd/chip-bgd-moneywatch.jpg'); } By Mary Cunningham, Mary Cunningham Reporter, MoneyWatch Mary Cunningham is a reporter for CBS MoneyWatch. She previously worked at "60 Minutes," CBSNews.com and CBS News 24/7 as part of the CBS News Associate Program. Read Full Bio Mary Cunningham, Aimee Picchi Aimee Picchi Associate Managing Editor, MoneyWatch Aimee Picchi is the associate managing editor for CBS MoneyWatch, where she covers business and personal finance. She previously worked at Bloomberg News and has written for national news outlets including USA Today and Consumer Reports. Read Full Bio Aimee Picchi April 3, 2026 / 4:44 PM EDT / CBS News Add CBS News on Google The economic fallout from the Iran war is starting to ripple through the U.S. "The impact is really widespread and affects everything from mortgage rates to travel to grocery prices and on down the line," Matt Schulz, chief consumer finance analyst at LendingTree, told CBS News. "Things were already challenging for a lot of Americans on pretty tight budgets, and this certainly doesn't help."A swift end to the war — specifically, reopening the Strait of Hormuz to facilitate oil flows and other ship traffic traversing the Persian Gulf — could help soften the blow for U.S. consumers. But experts told CBS News prices would not recede immediately, an unexpected financial strain for the millions of Americans still recovering from the inflationary blast that followed the pandemic. "Many parts of the economy are just starting to really feel the effects of some of these added costs," said Kate Wood, a lending expert at NerdWallet. Here are three ways the Iran war is hitting U.S. households.Travel and transportationThe average price of gas in the U.S. rose to $4.09 a gallon on Friday, up more than $1 from just before the war and the highest le...