Friday, January 19, 2007

Falling Gas Prices

Recently David posted about gas prices. While gas prices have recently risen, they have actually decreased relative to wages. In other words income has risen faster than the price of gas over the past 80 years. The book Myths of Rich and Poor gives a good chart.

Year Minutes needed to work to purchase a gallon of gas
1920 32
1930 22
1940 17
1950 11
1960 8.3
1970 6.4
1980 10
1990 6.5
latest 5.7
(No year was given for the latest date, the book was published in 1999)

1 comment:

Jenny said...

Forget about the long-term historical trends for a moment. Have gas prices decrease relative to wages in the last five years? After all, that all anyone voting today really cares about.