Gas Prices Actually Aren’t That High – December 2021
Energy Institute Faculty Director, Severin Borenstein’s piece in the Washington Post explains how gas prices actually aren’t that high as prices have increased on almost everything around us.
“‘This city just recorded the U.S.’s highest-ever average gasoline price,’ reads a typically breathless headline from Market Watch, referring to San Francisco. Like many recent observations, that one ignores inflation over the years and growing earning power. But if you ignore changes in prices and incomes, then just about all goods and services would seem unaffordable today, relative to the past, including food, housing, movies and haircuts…Unlike housing and health insurance – both of which take a much bigger bite out of household budgets than gasoline – gas prices haven’t actually changed much in real terms over the past couple decades.”
Photo: washingtonpost.com