or that's bullshit.

in 1980 gas was 75 cents, yes. but guess what, the minimum wage was like 3 dollars an hour. today it's more like 15 and gas is 3-4.

or we could go by median income, which was 17K in 1980 and is 80K today.

gas has always been cheap and still is cheap in america. esp if you compare it to say the cost in Canada. our entire national and international policy is all about supporting cheap gasoline for almost three generations now.

you have never once in your life seen actually expensive gas. for it to be legit expensive, it would have to be closer to 10 dollars a gallon, and maybe then you'd see people stop driving monster trucks that get 15-20mpg and shift back to small sedans that get 30-40+. i drive a car car that gets 45mpg, so gas prices going from 3-5 bucks a gallon has basically zero affect on me, because I'm not blowing through 25 gallons of it per week, more like 3 gallons, so my gas costs went from about $10 a week to $15.

the reason toyota/honda etc got popular in the 70s was gas prices went up and people started buying smaller cheaper cars to compensate, instead of polluting landboats they drove most of the 60s and 70s that got like 12mpg and had 20+ gallon gas tanks.

Millennial here who should know better, and same.

So true, king.

I watched a whole documentary about the full service requirement in NJ and the lobbies for and against it today.

As a kid, my dad would drive across state lines to get gas there bc even while employing people, it was cheaper than NY. Still a good deal even after tipping the guy.

The idea that somebody would come out and fuel you up for you it's just so weird to me. Like, it's not that hard, was there a real theft problem it's hard to believe when the price was so low.

I can't wait until we need to add a fourth digit

But the gas station has cut its staff to 1 worker, and they make the same non-adjusted wage as the workers in 1988.

The regular would be $2.17 a gallon specifically.

I mean I think the inflation part is what radicalized them

9 pents or 9/10 of a cent.

the pent was retired when inflation made them worthless.

that's odd, same thing happened to the penny this year....

9/10th of a cent. It's incredibly stupid.

It started out because of tacked on government tax and has persisted because it visually looks a cent cheaper at a glance.

Jeez. I recall prices like $1.47 and $1.65 in the same year (or close to it). That's cheap.

I just googled and it was still a thing. 1973 was the start of the phaseout, 1975 it became illegal for new cars, and it was fully banned for road use in 1996.