Ken Medlock

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.

The war has disrupted roughly 20 percent 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.

But crude oil and natural gas have a really important differentiator.

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.

The U.S.

has a limited amount of that liquefaction infrastructure, says Tom Tsang with Texas Christian University.

Even if the U.S.

wanted to export more natural gas to Europe or Asia, it just can't.

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 Coughlin with Natural Gas Intelligence.

But consumers here don't have to worry about that.

Ken Medlock again.

Cheaper natural gas prices are a silver lining as consumers here grapple with higher diesel, gasoline, and jet fuel.

I'm Elizabeth Trofal for Marketplace.

The U.S.