Eric Wieffering has covered Minnesota's economy and business community for more than two decades. His column appears two to three times a week, including Sunday.
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Gas prices: adjusted for inflation
Posted by: Eric Wieffering under Economics, Energy Updated: December 16, 2010 - 5:00 PM
Few stories get readers talking as much as one about rising gasoline prices. Everyone remembers $4 a gallon, and nobody relishes the prospect of paying $100 to fill their SUV again.
But this otherwise fine story is missing a key element: adjusting prices for inflation. In real terms, meaning adjusted for inflation, consumers paid the highest prices for gasoline in 1981 and the summer of 2008, when the price popped above $4 a gallon in some parts of the country.
InflationData.com has another nifty way of looking at gas prices that adds even more context: the average price of a gallon of gas, from 1918 to the present, is $2.39 a gallon. So, today's prices are well below the earlier peaks of 1981 and 2008, and not much higher than the average price American's have paid over the past 92 years.
And back in 1918, this Doble steam car could take you up to 40 miles on a gallon of gas.
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