Playing with the maths--on the highway

I’ve been wondering for the last few years about gas prices, income, and the cost of getting to work, but I’ve never actually done the numbers. I guess I was too afraid, or I figured that predictions of $10/gallon gas were unrealistic--not because it couldn’t happen, but because Bush would be out of office before it would happen, and the American people would elect someone who could figure out how to get us off oil before gas prices got to that ridiculous figure.

This morning, though, after seeing gas go up yet again at my local corner store ($3.89 last night, probably higher by end of today, given the holiday weekend) and after reading DCap’s brilliant post, I decided I needed to do the numbers—just to see what would happen.

The question I’ve been asking in my mind, but avoiding doing the numbers for, is this:

At what point would gasoline become so expensive that people would consider it impossible (or useless or stupid or whatever) to even go to work?

Let’s say that you make, oh, about $35K a year (don't cry for me, Argentina--many people in my area make less than that). If you work for your average American corporation or whatever, then after your company fucks you for insurance coverage and other benefits, and after the government fucks you for tax money to finance their ridiculous occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan (and the rest of the world), you take home about $22,500 a year. (Remember, this is only an example. Random. Not at all in any way related to my little paycheck. Really. Seriously. I mean it. Okay, just read the post already.)

Let’s put some numbers into an Excel spreadsheet, then, shall we? First, we’ll put in the price of a gallon of gasoline, then the number of gallons I use per week (I'm going to use the best-case estimate of 20 gallons), then we’ll do some mathin’:

So when gas hits $4 a gallon here in Central PA, which is only 11 cents away, I’ll be spending almost $80 a week to fill my tank. (I drive a Saturn Ion that gets about 33 miles per gallon on my mostly small-highway route to work and Kat’s school. We commute together, as we only have the one car.) $80 a week over 12 months = $4,357. That’s almost 20% of my sample take-home pay spent on getting myself to work and Kat to school, plus trips to the grocery store and such (all carefully planned to use the minimum amount of gasoline, by the way).

Well, 20% is a lot, but it's not going to make me think something crazy like I'm paying more to get to work than I'm making, or whatever. But let's fill those cells with a little bit of future pricing and see what happens:

So if gasoline were to hit $10 a gallon anytime soon, I'd be spending fully HALF my take-home income just to drive my car. (We won't even factor in the cost of insurance and maintenance.)

Want to really get sick?

These prices are not that far off. Should the country go insane and elect McNutJob (or should the repugs continue their now traditional practice of stealing the presidency and install McNutJob as our next Decider Guy), you can pretty much bet that these prices will be here within a year of the geezer's taking office.

Math hurts sometimes.

alternative energy plan