I know, you are probably tired of hearing me complaining about the gas prices. Perhaps this will be one of my last times. If it isn't sorry, I just can't help it.
So I was looking through my old receipts. Yes, I have receipts that date back to 1999. Couldn't believe it myself but it was true. In those receipts I found some old gas receipts. So I really paid attention to the gas receipts and decided to do a comparison.
In 1989 gas was .99 cents a gallon. I remember this because it was my first year driving. Minimum wage was $4.25 and hour I believe as well.
Ten years later the cost of gas was $1.51 a gallon in July of 1999. So in ten years time gas had gone up .52 cents a gallon. Minimum wage was $5.75 an hour. So in ten years time minimum wage had increased by $1.50 an hour.
In 2002 gas was $1.86 a gallon on average. So in three years time gas went up .35 cents. Minimum wage was $6.75 an hour. So in three years minimum wage increased by $1.00 an hour.
In 2006 gas averaged $2.81 a gallon. So in four years we saw $1.00 a gallon increase. Minimum wage was still $6.75 an hour.
In 2007 gas was the same price averaging around $2.81 a gallon. Minimum wage was $7.50 per hour an increase of .75 cents.
Now in 2008 gas is averaging $4.55 a gallon here where I live. So in the last year we have seen an increase of $1.74 a gallon. Crazy how fast it is increasing and we don't see any relief in sight. Minimum wage is now $8.00 an hour an increase of .25 cents an hour.
In 1989 gas was 25% of the hourly minimum wage. Now in 2008 gas is more than 50% of the cost of minimum wage. I ask you who is really suffering here. Sure maybe some of us hate the price increases but we can find other ways in our budget to make up for the difference. But what about those making minimum wage? How are they living in a poor economy like this with the prices of everything sky rocketing?
1 comment:
I think we're all complaining about the price of gas these days...on a daily basis. I live in Anacortes, there is a refinery not five miles from here and yet we're paying some of the highest prices in Washington state. I think when I filled up (at Costco where it's cheap) last time, it was over $4.50 a gallon. Ridiculous. And I don't even pay for gas. Thankfully, we run all our gas receipts through our stores. But I hadn't even thought of the people that make minimum wage trying to pay for it. And I should because we have a lot of those minimum wage workers working for us. In our state, minimum wage goes up every January (which just about kills those of us running small businesses) but when is the price of gas going to stop going up??? If it were a possibility for me right now, I would start riding the bus and leave my car parked in the driveway for a while. Well...this was long but as you can see, I am very annoyed by these gas prices myself.
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