Gasoline Prices
Anytime someone complains about the rising cost of gasoline, two things come to mind.
I don’t think it is rising
I was in sixth grade during the “energy crisis†and I vividly remember waiting in line for gasoline on even or odd days only. I remember the panic that our planet might be running out of oil. I remember gasoline reaching more than a dollar a gallon and I’ve always thought to myself – “that was a lot of money in 1979!†In my head I’ve always assumed that was several of today’s dollars.
Today I decided to finally take a real look at the prices.
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, retail gasoline prices rose steadily in 1979 from $0.72 to $1.07 per gallon – $2.31 to $3.07 in 2011 dollars (source – XLS). The Bureau of Labor Statistics calculator converts these prices to $2.18 – $3.25 per gallon.
Yesterday I paid $3.18 per gallon – right in the range between $3.07 and $3.25. It appears to me that prices have remained flat over the last 30+ years.
I thought it would be fun to look at a graph of the prices. I found this one
and the one from the DOE spreadsheet (source – XLS)
Both show the same two things:
- Prices are flat over the 32 year period.
- Prices actually dropped over a 20 year span.
NOTE: The first chart is based on data that is not quite the same as the DOE data, but close1.
If it is rising, it’s about time.
I know it is easy to say this when I can afford gasoline. I hope I’m never in a position where I can’t afford it.
Prices in other countries have been high for years. I understand that other governments may place higher taxes on fuel to curb use but I’m convinced that prices have stayed low because the U.S. government does everything in its power to keep us dependent on oil.
1
I took all 1979 prices from http://www.randomuseless.info/gasprice/gasprice.txt and saved them to my computer with the name gas.csv. Then I wrote a quick little script to figure the low, median, maximum, and average retail price. The figures I got – 0.7488 0.9615 1.281 0.94275443038 – did not match the figures from DOE but they were close.