You can add Treasury Secretary Jack Lew to the chorus of those who believe the drop in oil and gasoline prices will provide a boost to the economy.

Oil prices have plunged 43 percent since late June, hitting a five-year low of $59.32 a barrel Friday morning. And retail gasoline prices have plummeted 29 percent since June 30 to a national average of $2.62 a gallon for regular Thursday

"Short-term we're seeing a U.S. economy that's growing with increasing strength, and lower energy prices are going to be a boost to consumer demand and confidence," Lew said at a conference in New York, CNBC reports.

If gas prices stay at this level, IHS Global Insight says the average American family will save $750 in the next year, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Lew notes that the oil price descent acts "like a tax cut to the economy."

"So in terms of the macro economic impact, it's a net positive. There's always a question about what will be the impact on our production. I think it's a great success story that we're now producing oil in the quantity that we are," he states.

Lew suggests looking at the oil sector in two categories: shale development and the more traditional deep sea drilling.

He explains that long-term projects are less affected by lower prices. But he doesn't believe there will be a reduction in shale production. "Maybe just a stretchout of developing projects because those projects tend to produce a lot of their oil in their first year so they are more sensitive to the price of oil at the year you go into the ground."

The independence the U.S. has gained from producing our own oil "is a clear positive."

"Lower energy prices are going to be a boost to consumer demand and confidence."

Others agree. "It's a fair bet that most of the reduced energy costs are going to show up as added spending by consumers somewhere," James Hamilton, an economics professor at the University of California, San Diego, tells The Journal.

In addition, lower gas prices tend to lift consumer sentiment in a way "that makes people more optimistic than the added cash in their wallet seems to suggest," he notes.

Lew called U.S. oil production a "great success story." Output has reached its highest level in more than 31 years amid the shale revolution.

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