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Posted by D Sherman [72.47.9.228] on Thursday, January 27, 2011 at 12:28:23 :
In Reply to: Re: Diesel $3.89 gallon posted by Ron Hardin [76.28.157.12] on Thursday, January 27, 2011 at 11:57:33 :
When I was in high school, minimum wage was $1.75 and Nixon promised that "gas will never be $1 a gallon and bread will never be $1 a loaf" He put on price controls, so you had to wait in the gas line for hours, but once you got to the pump, it was something like 90 cents/gallon. Nowadays minimum wage is $7.25, and gas is still less than half of that, plus we don't have to wait in line, so I guess we're better off now than under Nixon and the Arab oil embargo.
On the other hand when I started my first real job in 1982, I was making $12/hr and gas was still right around $1/gal. A guy doing the same job I did then probably gets $20-$25 today, but gas is 3X the price.
I guess it all depends on what period you compare it too in terms of how long you have to work to buy a gallon of gas. In the late '60s, my dad was probably making $10/hr at Boeing and paying 35 cents for gas, so he was earning 30 gallons per hour. A guy doing the same work nowadays is probably earning about 10 gallons per hour. I don't see the price ever coming down, short of a global depression.