Gasoline prices reached a national average of $4 a gallon for the first time over the June 7 weekend, inconveniencing drivers everywhere—but particularly in the South, Southwest and upper Great Plains.
Those areas are being hit particularly hard by the increase, due to the combination of low incomes, high gas prices and heavy dependence on pickup trucks and vans, according to The New York Times.
Americans are currently spending an average of 4% of their take-home income on gasoline, according to Brian A. Bethune, an economist at forecasting firm Global Insight. In some counties in the Mississippi Delta, they are spending upward of 13%.
The newspaper reports that in that area, the high prices are forcing some farm workers to borrow money from their employers just to make it to work; people are forgoing meat in favor of buying fuel; and drivers are running out of gas more frequently, leaving their cars on the side of the road until they can come up with money for gas.
“This crisis really impacts those who are at the economic margins of society, mostly in the rural areas and particularly parts of the Southeast,” said Fred Rozell, retail pricing director at the Oil Price Information Service, a fuel analysis firm. “These are people who have to decide between food and transportation.”
The 4% average Americans now pay on tax is not as high as in the early ‘80s, however. In early 1981, Americans spent an average of 4.5% of their take-home income on gasoline.
“Gas prices have doubled over the last year but the economy has not fallen off the cliff,” said Rajeev Dhawan, director of the Economic Forecasting Center at Georgia State University. “But for the rural lower income people, as a proportion of their income the rise of gas prices is very high.”
