I heard a woman in the grocery store this morning saying that she didn’t have enough money to buy gas to get to work next week. That’s because regular gas now costs $3.99 per gallon. In June of 2009, consumer reports stated, “The national gasoline average is now about a $1.42 below the price this time last year.”
This means that since the recession ended, the price of gas rose 280%. This is hurting those who can least afford it: the working poor.
It’s time to approve the Keystone XL pipeline, open up domestic drilling and work on alternative sources of energy that are at least two to three decades in the future.
Although recent indicators of spending are up, savings dropped. This indicates the numbers do not reflect a strong recovery. These high gas prices have the potential to create a drag on the economy’s meager recovery. The number below indicate how pathetic this so-called recovery has been for the ordinary people.
June 2005 employment: 141,638 civilians employed
March 2007 employment: 146,254 civilians employed
June 2009 employment: 140,196 civilians employed (end of recession)
February 2012 employment: 142,065 civilians employed
(Source Bureau of Labor Statistics)
Don’t these pathetic job numbers reflect the need for economic policy changes to help the ordinary worker?
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