My cousin and a couple friends are either contractors, or are in the skilled trades - electrical, plumbing etc. All have said that demand has been nuts since C-19 hit and they've been booked out for months since last year.
Price of gas has little to do with the guy in the Oval office, it's driven by speculation in the market / confidence levels which are affected by world events, as well as seasonal changes in demand. Gas is high now because demand is high from summer travel and the re-opening economy, and historically will start to drop soon. Wholesale prices as of May 21 were $.07 higher than 2019 levels for CT, and very close to 2015. Feel free to look up the historical wholesale prices from your state.
https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=EMA_EPM0_PWG_SCT_DPG&f=M
Price increases are everywhere. My wife works in lighting, she gets price increase notices on a daily basis and they have added disclaimer notices to all their quotes. Some manufacturers have taken 5~6 increases so far *this year*, which is unheard of. Many companies have held the line to keep from pushing it to the consumers, but they're dropping like flies now. Our material prices have gone up as well, the cost for 16ga CRS sheet is
330% of what it was in Aug 2020. I had tremendous trouble getting sheet materials at the beginning of the year, which caused us to put 4 months of the highest moving sheet goods on the floor, when I normally keep two weeks at best.
I can tell you for a fact that Summit is selling at or very close to MSRP on many items *because they can*. Look to others to follow suit when they figure it out. The demand is real, we've had a fantastic year and cannot keep anything in stock.