Pain at the pump hurts families and the economy

Some benchmarks are more troubling than others. The news this week that the national average for gasoline prices had exceeded $4 for the first time is beyond troubling, bordering on alarming.

And when it comes to what’s happened to the price of diesel fuel, alarming is a perfectly appropriate description.

It’s bad for those of us who pump gasoline into our tanks. Regular has gone up about 35 cents in the last month and about 90 cents in a year.

Diesel has gone up about 50 cents in a month and almost $2 in a year; it’s now approaching the $5-a-gallon mark. The immediate effect of those increases is being felt in the trucking industry and by independent haulers; it will be felt by everyone else in increasing fashion as the higher cost of transporting goods factors into what we’ll pay for virtually anything we buy.

The increase in jet fuel is causing cutbacks that will redefine where people go and when. Thousands of jobs have been lost in the airline industry. There will be trickle-own job losses in tourist areas.

The rising cost of oil shows up in other ways that affect out lives. Two weeks ago The Vindicator reported that higher petroleum prices would mean a reduction in Youngstown’s street repaving program. The city will spend $1.5 million to repave 52 streets this summer, about $120,000 more than was spent in 2007 to repave 59 streets. The cost of street-paving material increased 26 percent between 2007 and 2008 paving seasons.

Really bad news

And the really bad news is that while oil prices dropped about $4 a barrel Monday to $134.35, analysts say the price at the pump still hasn’t caught up to when it was selling for $139 per barrel. And if it goes to $150 a barrel, as some analysts still expect, regular grade gasoline will average $4.40 a gallon.

No one expects the return of cheap gasoline, but a 400 percent increase in the price at the pump over eight years is taking a toll on the economy. A fill-up that cost $25 a few years ago now costs $50. For most families, that $25 or more per car per week is not a cost that is easily absorbed. It comes out of savings or out of discretionary spending (entertainment, eating out, clothing) for middle class families — which is not good news for the economy. For the working poor, it comes out of necessities (food and medicine) — which is bad news for those families and a strain on society.

Obviously, the long-term answer is a change in how Americans use energy. About 35 years ago, the nation was challenged to conserve energy and, out of necessity, did for a short time. But as Americans adjusted to higher energy costs, conservation and redesigning our biggest gasoline users — automobiles — were put on the back burner.

Today we’re paying the price for that complacency. And we’ll continue to pay it for years, if not decades, to come.