# Record Diesel Is Costing Jackson-Area Truckers 42 Cents a Mile More Than Last Year > Mississippi diesel hit an all-time high of $6.06 a gallon on Sept. 23 and sits at $5.99 today, up 83% from a year ago. For a 200-gallon fill that is $544 more per stop, and the metro's 302,100-payroll economy moves on trucks. *Economy · By Jackson Wire Staff · September 28, 2026* Mississippi diesel set a record on Sept. 23 at $6.0626 a gallon, and it has barely moved since. AAA put the statewide average at $5.9853 on Monday, down two cents from the peak but still 83% above the $3.2662 drivers paid a year ago. That is not a rounding error for the trucks that move the metro's goods. A 200-gallon fill, the figure Jackson drivers cited to Mississippi Public Broadcasting last week, costs $1,197 today. A year ago the same fill cost $653. The difference is $544 per stop, and a long-haul truck fills several times a week. The Wire ran the per-mile math. A typical Class 8 tractor gets about 6.5 miles to the gallon. At Monday's $5.9853, fuel costs $0.92 a mile. At last year's $3.2662, it cost $0.50. The swing is 42 cents a mile, and it lands on every load that leaves a Jackson warehouse, a Richland distribution dock, or a Flowood retail backroom. The federal benchmark tells the same story. The U.S. Energy Information Administration's Gulf Coast on-highway diesel price was $6.177 a gallon for the week of Sept. 21, up $2.777 from the same week a year earlier, an 81.7% increase, according to the EIA's Gasoline and Diesel Fuel Update. The national average was $6.529, up $2.78. The squeeze is sharpest for owner-operators who cannot pass the cost through. Ash Simon, a Mississippi trucker, told MPB that his company needs about $3.23 a mile to be profitable while loads are paying closer to $2. Fuel alone accounts for 42 cents of that $1.23-a-mile gap, roughly a third of the shortfall, before insurance, maintenance, or the driver's own time. Todd Bates, president of the Mississippi Trucking Association, told MPB the cost does not stop at the loading dock. "Diesel itself is involved in every product that you touch," he said, describing the pass-through as "almost a hidden inflation or hidden tax" that eventually reaches the consumer. That pass-through matters in a metro whose payrolls just set a record. The Jackson MSA counted 302,100 nonfarm jobs in August, up from 298,600 in March, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics series for the metro. The unemployment rate was 3.6% in July. A tight labor market and a fuel spike are pulling in opposite directions on the same balance sheet. There is a Jackson-specific bill hiding in the number. The city reopened its landfill this year at $10 a ton, a rate the Wire has reported invites the whole metro to dump in Jackson. Every one of those inbound loads burns diesel, and the haulers who serve Hinds, Madison, and Rankin counties are the same operators now paying 42 cents a mile more to get there. The city sets the gate rate; it does not set the fuel surcharge that gets a truck to the gate. The record is recent enough that the relief, if it comes, is not yet visible. AAA shows Mississippi diesel down from $6.0523 a week ago and from the $6.0626 record, a decline of about 8 cents from the peak. The EIA's next weekly release is scheduled for Tuesday, Sept. 29, and it will be the first read on whether the Gulf Coast price has turned. What's next: The EIA publishes its next on-highway diesel figures on Tuesday, Sept. 29, and AAA updates daily. Watch whether the Gulf Coast price breaks below $6 a gallon, which would be the first sign the record is behind the market. The Mississippi Trucking Association, reachable through its Jackson office, is the body tracking whether carriers begin adding or raising fuel surcharges as the fall shipping season starts. For local readers, the number to watch is the Jackson MSA payroll count in the next BLS release. If fuel stays near $6 and the 302,100 figure holds, the metro is absorbing the cost. If trucking and warehousing hours start to slip, the record at the pump will have found its way onto the payroll. --- [The Jackson Wire](https://www.thejacksonwire.com/) · [Read on the web](https://www.thejacksonwire.com/article/record-diesel-costs-jackson-truckers-42-cents-a-mile)