Wage-Guzzling Gas Prices

Here's one legacy that George W. Bush can't be too proud of: too little, too late for the average minimum wage worker. The top line shows the percentage of the minimum wage that gasoline prices are eating into -- namely, it's an increasing percentage of a hourly worker's take-home pay, leaving the worker with less than before. Note that while the federal minimum wage increases in July, I've held gas prices stagnant at $4.03/gallon -- something unlikely to prove true. Also, the federal minimum wage increases again in July of 2009 -- to $7.25 -- which reduces the percentage from 61.66 to 55.71 percent. The numbers still aren't stellar: they put the worker back to the equivalent of the second quarter of 2007, when the faltering economy was already starting to bite further into average budgets across both food and fuel prices. This is the legacy of eight years of Republican manglement management of our federal government. The figures are from the chart below, which was created using data from this spreadsheet available from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) through their page on Weekly Retail Gasoline and Diesel Prices. The source of information for the federal minimum wage comes from the History of Federal Minimum Wage Rates Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, 1938 - 2007 available on the U.S. Department of Labor website and their page on the recent update regarding the Compliance Assistance — Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).