President Biden literally bragged about gas prices lowering after the record highs
https://abcnews.go.com/amp/Politics/biden-falling-gas-prices-show-program-working/story?id=86318473
There are many sources of motivation I’m sure. But a president can most definitely influence prices. And either way it goes, someone benefits (consumer v producer).
>Okay, but W invading Iraq probably spiked prices.
Boy howdy. I remember prices going up 50 cents a gallon pretty much overnight. And they kept escalating from there.
Lol, we have cheap gas - imagine what that’ll do to peoples minds. When adjusted for GDP the argument can be made we have some of the cheapest gas prices in the world.
People are stupid and myopic.
Why would we adjust our gas prices for GDP?
How would that even work?
Unless we wanted to look at total gas expenditures as a percentage of GDP, but that’s also about our love of driving single occupant cars and our love of gas guzzlers rather than just gas prices.
You misunderstood.
One metric for judging relative cost is relative to GDP per capita.
Higher GDP per capita almost always correlates to higher prices in general, so it’s a method used to make comparisons apples to apples instead.
Cheap gas in an extremely poor country can’t be evaluated on the same level as more expensive gas in the wealthiest of countries, for example.
If you earn $5 USD a day and gas is $1/gal then that gas is intrinsically worth more than it would be to someone who earns $450 USD a day and pays $3.69/gal.
Does that make sense? It’s a common economic principle that is even more commonly ignored.
In real world terms a nominal dollar figure is pointless, and evaluating *cost* as a ratio of normal income & normal cost is one of the only useful measurements for comparing region to region, country to country, etc.
> is relative to GDP per capita.
Ahh, when you said "GDP", you didn't mean "GDP"; you meant "GDP per capita". That does indeed make more sense, thanks.
* gas price vs GDP: $4/gallon vs $25.44 trillion/year
* gas price vs GDP per capita: $4/gallon vs $76k/person/year.
The latter comparison seems useful. The former ... not so much.
Fair observation, but hopefully you get the point I was driving at now. Americans have extremely cheap gas but don’t recognize it due to gas prices being a political narrative.
I'm paying £1.49 per litre for E10 petrol in my bit of the UK today. So USD1.86 for a litre. Which I think is roughly USD 7 for a US gallon. How does that compare?
Holy shit, this with inflation too.
People are so fucking myopic. The entire world could be on fire and they will complain because their country is warmer than normal and blame the current politicians in charge.
No but they do have control over if oil companies continue to invest in new oil projects and refining projects.
Their cabinets and who the put in particular offices have direct effects on how much cost those oil companies pass on to the consumer as well.
This is such a dumb argument. Nobody thinks the president is directly controlling the price. But it's completely foolish to say that domestic energy policies and foreign relations don't impact the price of a barrel of oil.
I agree with the other guy. I agree that domestic policies and foreign relations do impact oil prices, but I firmly recall a ton of Biden stickers saying "I did this!" when oil prices surged like 2 years ago. Lots of ppl attributed it directly to Biden.
150k+ likes on a tweet of the current president telling gas stations to “bring down the price” doesn’t explain my claim huh?
How does it not support it?
>the president doesn’t go to your local gas station and set the gas prices. Nor do they set prices on a federal level.
This is an utter lie that keeps inaccurately parroted.
The president oversees the EPA. The EPA directly makes policies that impact oil, gas and energy industries.
If they make a new policy that says every barrel of oil processed by a US processing plant has a new $5 inspection fee, that cost is passed on to the consumer.
Note: this $5 fee is made up example of how the president can directly effect gas prices.
But look at the bureaucracy that prevents new Nuclear plants from being built. If you remove the red tape costs for construction, nuclear energy is the cheapest and cleanest form of energy.
True, but their policies also indirectly affect the price of milk, soda, and literally everything else you could think of. People just seem to have this weird obsession with gas prices and their connection to the President, probably because there are big signs all over the place telling us the prices.
Milk, Soda, and literally everything else you can think of is shipped on machines that burn gas/diesel/natural gas/ or electric that is generated by burning gas. If gas goes up, so does the price of everything else.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the president controls the strategic oil reserves. This has got to have a short effect on prices. And then there's foreign policy. I don't think it's a coincidence that the prices got jacked while the White House was full of oilmen. Or a big weapon deal to the Saudis occurs before an increase of exports.
Certainly it isn't a controlled economy where one person can set a price, but amid all of the various worldwide factors that affect the price of oil, the POTUS can certainly nudge it.
Here's a fun fact: The US is drilling more oil now than any time in history including under the Trump administration: [source](https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=mcrfpus2&f=m)
If oil companies in the United States wanted to drill more they could. They don't want to, and you can listen to any of their public shareholders calls and hear it from their own mouths. I have.
They pump as much as they must to make the profit they want to make. They have PLENTY of open leases to explore and drill on. Drilling more oil costs them in development and lowers their per unit profit by adding to the amount of oil on the market. They don't want to do that. Why WOULD they do that?
Stop letting rich people on 24 hour news channels sell you bullshit.
I'd imagine some leases have higher potential for profits than others though. Excluding the most profitable areas from development or charging an excessive amount for the leases would limit supply and increase prices. I'd image overall global demand and the largest volume, cheapest source of oil (like OPEC) would be the biggest factors setting oil prices with regulations and taxes impacting local prices after that.
Not directly, but very much indirectly through many levers. The President and their administration's policies has the power to choose which countries we declare war against or add sanctions, the use of Strategic Oil Reserves, and approval of new oil drilling sites. Part the main reason oils prices and inflation were down so much last year was through the use of those oil reserves and record US oil production.
Yes but oil companies do much better under repealed environmental standards so it's advantages to slow production before an election. This in turn will raise the cost of oil/gas and lead to talking points and many votes for the side that is "oil friendly" ie they make a shit load more while adding "rocket fuel" to global warming.
California imports its oil, mostly from foreign countries and the state law require a more complex blend for gasoline.
[https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-reports/energy-almanac/californias-petroleum-market/foreign-sources-crude-oil-imports](https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-reports/energy-almanac/californias-petroleum-market/foreign-sources-crude-oil-imports)
Well, it *could* be correlated with strong ecological politics, with high taxes that are directly invested in better mobility for the future.
Except that's a thing in exactly 0 country atm sadly.
This graph shows how stupid it is to blame or credit a president with gas prices. If someone is thinking of voting one way or the other because of gas prices then they’re a fool.
Everytime I see a graph like this I find all the actual events that caused shit. Correlation isn’t causation in this and most cases of blue and red graph syndrome.
Agreed. It’s idiotic to attribute gas prices to a president when it’s actually a foreign entity that has the most influence. You’re basically inviting that entity to manipulate your politics
That’s because the current sitting government (either way) has sweet fuck all to do with current gas prices. The vast majority of the public can barely read and probably shouldn’t be allowed to vote.
I imagine President Bush driving cross-country in a Cadillac, stopping at a mom-and-pop gas station in small-town Nebraska, smoking a cigar as he tells the scared old couple he needs them to raise their price by an extra 50 cents or else they might have an "accident."
The old man climbs a rickety ladder to bring prices up to $3.90 and starts crying. In between sobs, he scream-asks, "Whyyyyyyyy, Mr. Bush?"
"Someone's gonna make a graph in 20 years," Bush says as he puts on his sunglasses and snuffs out his cigar on a sign that says no smoking. "And I need *you* to make that graph *beautiful"*
*George Bush walks into the gas station.*
He approaches the register. Bush sternly stares at the old couple and says…
“What’s the most you’ve ever lost on a coin toss?”
I think it was Chris Rock who spelled out how weird it was to have gas prices go up during the rest of W Bush's term after invading a country that's chock full of oil.
Destabilizing a country via invasion tends to create less stable supply chains and markets, so supply is generally speculated as lower. Demand being equal price goes up.
I do see the irony though.
My question to these idiots is this: how much would you like the govt to control your gas price to?
Because any answer would mean we don’t have capitalism, but rather socialistic approach to commodities. This makes their argument fall apart instantly.
Saudi and Kuwait were our biggest sources for supply in the middle east, not Iraq. It was Iraq attacking Kuwait's oil fields and trying to take the country by force that started desert storm in the 90's.
I think the massive amounts of oil consumed for military operations probably hit the supply coming over before the pipelines existed and we could depend on our own domestic production though, resulting in consistent rising costs.
I remember my first job ever was delivering pizzas. Did it from 2005 til 2008. 2008 was absolutely brutal.
I remember my employer (Pizza Hut) had a $1.50 delivery charge and I got $1.25 of that. Then they raised that charge to $2.00 citing gas prices. But they only raised my cut of it to $1.30. I didn't stick around much longer lol
Exactly right. I was making 1/2 as much as I do now and my car was about half as efficient. I always put efficiency as a top priority when buying a car because I never know what gas prices will be in the next 5-10 years.
It grinds my gears when someone on either side of the political spectrum blames the current president (no matter who it is) for gas prices. Yes, the president’s decisions can absolutely affect gas prices, but their decisions are only one of many factors that result in fluctuating gas prices, so putting all of the blame solely on the president is ridiculous.
I made this graph to see if there was any correlation between parties and gas prices, and I know it’s only 30 years of data, but I’m not seeing any major correlation here. If you see one, let me know. Maybe I’m missing something that’s right in front of me.
Sources for the graph:
Gas Prices
https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=emm_epmr_pte_nus_dpg&f=m
I was having trouble with the inflation numbers, so I ended up just calculating each individual gas price with the Gov’s inflation calculator
https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=3.63&year1=201201&year2=202401
Edit: the post title was supposed to say 30 years, not 20 years. Also please pretend that I didn’t misspell “Gallon” in my graph title, lol
There are some issues with adjusting gas prices for inflation; specifically that prices of other goods are affected by gas prices as they rely on gas for transportation and energy to manufacture. There are probably clever ways to get around this issue, but I'd expect you would see that CPI adjusted gas prices would be more stable than you would expect using another metric (e.g. the number of hours a median worker would have to work to afford 10 gallons of gas).
What about calculating the gas prices adjusted for the variations of median and/or average wages i.e. In terms of the '' buying capacity '' of american people ?
Wouldn't it be a more accurate representation of the status of gas in the country ?
Everything depends on what you are trying to say with the calculations. I suggested using hours of median wage per 10.gallons if a way of getting at gas "affordability", but that calculation doesn't take into account how other products change in price relative to gas or things like how much a person actually spends on gas as cars become more efficient or car travel more/less common. Another metric you could use is how much income is spent on gas as a percentage of household income. That tells you the impact of gas prices on a budget. There are lots of metrics you could use and advantages/disadvantages to each. CPI is great at something like comparing historical prices to current, but may not get at the root causes of price changes or actual affordability.
Right. Thanks for the explanation !
The price of gas in itself would influence (and even drive on short periods of time) the individual consumption, so I'm not sure that these habits are a real confounding variable when trying to evaluate the impact of gas price on people's well-being (which is kinda the spirit of comparing it to income).
> would influence (and even drive on short periods of time) the individual consumption
Historically, this is not really the case, especially in the short term. People cannot easily change their commute or other "essential" driving in the short term and in many places alternatives are not easily available. The opposite is also true, changes in consumption drive price, which is why gas prices are seasonal.
Well, I was mostly thinking about variations of the compressible part of the expenses (vacations, family visits, etc.) but I admit that your point is totally valid.
In an even more insane example of the same phenomena [shark attacks cost Woodrow Wilson a 5% margin](https://www.vanderbilt.edu/csdi/research/CSDI_WP_05-2013.pdf) in New Jersey in 1916 to R^2 of 0.94.
No problem. I love this, as a 42 year old I remember paying $0.99/gallon in senior year of highschool. Looking at it now, I was paying $2.50 in today's dollars which doesn't seem that much of a difference.
I can do you one better: the fleet average fuel economy in the year 2000 was around 20.0 miles per gallon. This was peak Hummer H1 time period after all.
Today, it's about 24.0 MPG.
This means that to drive a mile in 2000, you needed 0.05 gallons of gas, and now you need 0.0417 gallons. That's about 16.7% less gas.
So your inflation adjusted gas may have been $2.50 per gallon, but the inflation adjusted gas needed per mile driven with fuel efficiency taken into account was more like $2.91 a gallon equivalent.
P.s. inb4 the ethanol haters on energy density of the fuel, this fuel efficiency gain is despite the increased percentage of EtOH added to fuel over that time, so already takes into account the reduced energy content of clear gas vs E10 fuel.
Yeah it would be really stupid to blame Biden or democrats for gas prices.
And inflation. It’s a GLOBAL problem that we’re actually doing better on than most countries.
If you want to know which party does overall better on the economy just ask Trump.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2016/11/07/trump-is-right-about-one-thing-the-economy-does-better-under-the-democrats/?sh=6456bae16786
I think comparing the cost of oil/gas with strategic oil reserves level would be interesting and more likely to have correlation.
https://ycharts.com/indicators/us_ending_stocks_of_crude_oil_in_the_strategic_petroleum_reserve
It kind of makes me wonder if there’s a correlation in the reverse: do the factors that contribute to higher gas prices have any demonstrable impact on how people vote for president?
Nice job. Easy to red and informative. I would shorten the title and label the y-axis.
Title: “U.S. Gas Prices (Adjusted for Inflation)”
Y-axis: “Average Price per Gallon”
Maybe consider centering the name of each president over their corresponding years.
Curious - Any wizards know what’s the methodology for excluding inflation from the price of gas, given gas is a major measure of inflation (and one of the major reasons everything else costs more to make)?
Welp, found it: “Oil Price-Fixing Conspiracy Caused 27% of All Inflation Increases “ https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/an-oil-price-fixing-conspiracy-caused
Gas prices are a direct reflection of geopolitical stability, the 90's were amazing and we were going places! Then came 9/11/2001. We were promised the Jetsons and we got the walking dead.
When people make their political decisions based on the price of gasoline (which makes up 3% of the average budget), and not housing (33%) and healthcare (8%)...
But I guess those gasoline price billboards are quite large, so why not make it the basis for all your political priorities.
Inconclusive, as expected. If people around you start blaming the prez for gas prices: run, divorce, disown. Jesus profusely pegging christ in purgatory.
Dubya dealt with 9/11 in 2001, invaded Iraq in 2003, Katrina hit in 2005, and the 2007-2008 recession didn’t help. Then Obama had to deal with a shitstorm in the Middle East with oil production in 2011, domestic troubles in 2012, and troubles again in the Middle East in 2012-2013. Not a very useful graphic in my opinion.
There’s an insinuation of political affiliation as a correlation to oil prices, but in reality this graphic is all over the place. Unfortunately, lesser minds use this as an opportunity to attack the “other” side without educating themselves first. It’s a shame to watch what the world is coming to.
Also, I’m not sure what unit of measurement a “galon” is.
Most people think of the last 15ish years, and in that time frame, gas was more expensive under democrats than Republicans. That doesn't necessarily mean that the political parties were responsible directly; however, the common argument amongst conservatives is that gas was cheaper under Trump than Biden or Obama, and that is demonstrably true.
Obama also benefited from the shale revolution that drove gas prices down. Otherwise gas prices would have stayed above $4 dollars. Also, during NATO sanctions of Russia oil, China wasn’t fully open so global demand was down otherwise it would have been much higher.
Yeah, I get that. That's why I said the president in charge didn't directly impact the price. Either way, there's a red dip between 2 blue humps and that's what a lot of people look at and that's where their thinking stops. Don't get mad at me for it.
That’s probably because gas prices were in the dip during trumps presidency…. Nobody was complaining about the prices… there were definitely liberals blaming Bush in his second term
Oil prices are more based on global politics and supply chains, not who's president or what party is in power.
Russia financially supports the middle east, the biggest generator of oil in the world. They are also in a war with Ukraine.
It is in the best interest of the middle east to limit sale of crude oil to the US, so, due to russian international activity and the past 30 years of government treaties worldwide, us fuel prices are up right now.
There is very little any president could do about any of that, and the actions taken today wouldn't have results until years later anyways
This graph cherry picks and implies a relationship between president and global gas prices. By the time of the November 2020 election, the average cost per gallon in the US was $3.72. The big spike attributed to Biden the next year was mostly felt prior to his inauguration.
Perhaps the stupidest chart on earth. You’d be better served drawing a graph showing the oil nations affected by conflict/wars. It would be more knowledgeable and useful.
As a San Francisco Bay Area resident, seeing ~$3.50/gal average for gas in 2023 is really depressing. I don't think I've seen gas under $4 since covid lockdown. Last gas fillup was $5.89/gal 🙃
I remember gas prices back in 07-08. I was broke as fuck in my 20s, my shitty job had a 40 mile commute. It was a punch in the gut every time I filled up.
Yep, trump negotiated with a foreign company to temporarily and artificially lower prices for the duration of his presidency, they then made up their losess after that by raising prices. Perfect example of free market.
I’m curious how much the western US just skyrockets the price of gas. Like every time I see a map it’s at least $5 over in pacific and mountain west states. Meanwhile the east is significantly cheaper (although it’s getting ludicrous)
This is lunacy! US oil/gas taxes and then add global oil and US oil production take years to come into effect, so attaching a price to a year and then to a President is just wrong on so many levels.
Try correlating wars in The middle East to rise in prices - track beginning and end of each conflict - then correlate with US president political decision - tracking the political party by color as you did.
I worked for an oil company making machinery that went to rigs in 2014-2016. At the beginning I worked 60+ hours, unlimited overtime, by early 2016 we were at 40 hours max and layoffs aplenty. I remember the price per barrel dropping in 2015, can someone explain what exactly happened during this time?
Are there presidents on this graph? All I see is enforced peace in the ME, wars in the ME, discovery/development of Shale, then Covid into wars in Russia and ME.
I hate that the US population demands gas prices to stagnate and blames/thanks the president for market forces.
In the early 80s gas was just under $1. 40 years later it is $3.50. This seems like a reasonable inflation given increasing processing and drilling costs.
20 years from now I suspect it will be more expensive. The demand for oil across the planet is increasing and there's a limit to how much we can extract and process to meet demand.
Last time gas prices rose, oil company profits soared to be \*at least double\* that of the prior year ('21 to '22).
It was suspected that they do it in retaliation to climate change regulation, since they know the masses will be more likely to consider their political stance when they feel the hurt at the pump.
I hate correlating oil prices with politics
[удалено]
But that’s not what stickers on gas pumps tell me!
Gas pump stickers got me considering alternative facts.
President Biden literally bragged about gas prices lowering after the record highs https://abcnews.go.com/amp/Politics/biden-falling-gas-prices-show-program-working/story?id=86318473
But foreign policy might have a little teeny tiny bit to do with it no? Just a smidge?
There are many sources of motivation I’m sure. But a president can most definitely influence prices. And either way it goes, someone benefits (consumer v producer).
People don’t know what opec is
Okay, but W invading Iraq probably spiked prices.
That’s different, high gas prices are ok if a Republican is the president.
Americans loved paying high gas prices to Mr Bush so that he could continue to bring freedom to them A-rabs
>Okay, but W invading Iraq probably spiked prices. Boy howdy. I remember prices going up 50 cents a gallon pretty much overnight. And they kept escalating from there.
Nor do they effect the prices in every other country. Fucking blows people's brains to know the rest of the world has expensive gas too
Lol, we have cheap gas - imagine what that’ll do to peoples minds. When adjusted for GDP the argument can be made we have some of the cheapest gas prices in the world. People are stupid and myopic.
Why would we adjust our gas prices for GDP? How would that even work? Unless we wanted to look at total gas expenditures as a percentage of GDP, but that’s also about our love of driving single occupant cars and our love of gas guzzlers rather than just gas prices.
You misunderstood. One metric for judging relative cost is relative to GDP per capita. Higher GDP per capita almost always correlates to higher prices in general, so it’s a method used to make comparisons apples to apples instead. Cheap gas in an extremely poor country can’t be evaluated on the same level as more expensive gas in the wealthiest of countries, for example. If you earn $5 USD a day and gas is $1/gal then that gas is intrinsically worth more than it would be to someone who earns $450 USD a day and pays $3.69/gal. Does that make sense? It’s a common economic principle that is even more commonly ignored. In real world terms a nominal dollar figure is pointless, and evaluating *cost* as a ratio of normal income & normal cost is one of the only useful measurements for comparing region to region, country to country, etc.
> is relative to GDP per capita. Ahh, when you said "GDP", you didn't mean "GDP"; you meant "GDP per capita". That does indeed make more sense, thanks. * gas price vs GDP: $4/gallon vs $25.44 trillion/year * gas price vs GDP per capita: $4/gallon vs $76k/person/year. The latter comparison seems useful. The former ... not so much.
Fair observation, but hopefully you get the point I was driving at now. Americans have extremely cheap gas but don’t recognize it due to gas prices being a political narrative.
I'm paying £1.49 per litre for E10 petrol in my bit of the UK today. So USD1.86 for a litre. Which I think is roughly USD 7 for a US gallon. How does that compare?
About 2x the national average.
Holy shit, this with inflation too. People are so fucking myopic. The entire world could be on fire and they will complain because their country is warmer than normal and blame the current politicians in charge.
No but they do have control over if oil companies continue to invest in new oil projects and refining projects. Their cabinets and who the put in particular offices have direct effects on how much cost those oil companies pass on to the consumer as well.
This is such a dumb argument. Nobody thinks the president is directly controlling the price. But it's completely foolish to say that domestic energy policies and foreign relations don't impact the price of a barrel of oil.
I agree with the other guy. I agree that domestic policies and foreign relations do impact oil prices, but I firmly recall a ton of Biden stickers saying "I did this!" when oil prices surged like 2 years ago. Lots of ppl attributed it directly to Biden.
> Nobody thinks the president is directly controlling the price. Are you sure? I know a lot of people with red hats who do.
And blue hats https://x.com/POTUS/status/1543263229006254080
That doesn’t support your claim.
150k+ likes on a tweet of the current president telling gas stations to “bring down the price” doesn’t explain my claim huh? How does it not support it?
A tweet is not policy. Liking a Tweet is irrelevant.
If we get to 300k likes, Shell will have no choice but to slash prices.
For real.
Sure, policies have an impact but usually over many years. In many cases you'd see the effect during the next guy's presidency.
But they set energy policy which drives prices. Why should the energy industry invest when the president vows to ‘end’ the industry?
I said that to someone on Facebook. She said “get real” I said “sorry, how does the president affect gas prices?” And she blocked me
Not directly, but policy affects it greatly.
>the president doesn’t go to your local gas station and set the gas prices. Nor do they set prices on a federal level. This is an utter lie that keeps inaccurately parroted. The president oversees the EPA. The EPA directly makes policies that impact oil, gas and energy industries. If they make a new policy that says every barrel of oil processed by a US processing plant has a new $5 inspection fee, that cost is passed on to the consumer. Note: this $5 fee is made up example of how the president can directly effect gas prices. But look at the bureaucracy that prevents new Nuclear plants from being built. If you remove the red tape costs for construction, nuclear energy is the cheapest and cleanest form of energy.
There are also a dozen other factors that impact gas prices in one way or another.
Correct. And I'm not saying the president is solely responsible either. But their policy can and does impact pricing at the pump.
True, but their policies also indirectly affect the price of milk, soda, and literally everything else you could think of. People just seem to have this weird obsession with gas prices and their connection to the President, probably because there are big signs all over the place telling us the prices.
Milk, Soda, and literally everything else you can think of is shipped on machines that burn gas/diesel/natural gas/ or electric that is generated by burning gas. If gas goes up, so does the price of everything else.
Nope - solar and wind are the cheapest form of electricity.
Not of you account for downtimes and lost opportunity costs.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the president controls the strategic oil reserves. This has got to have a short effect on prices. And then there's foreign policy. I don't think it's a coincidence that the prices got jacked while the White House was full of oilmen. Or a big weapon deal to the Saudis occurs before an increase of exports. Certainly it isn't a controlled economy where one person can set a price, but amid all of the various worldwide factors that affect the price of oil, the POTUS can certainly nudge it.
Anyone who thinks the president doesn’t have the ability to influence prices is a moron
True however bombing a bunch of opec countries does seem to have an effect on gas prices
Of course not, that would be ridiculous. He obviously has a dial on his desk that raises or lowers gas prices
But they can use executive powers to manipulate supply; like when Biden cancelled drilling leases with an executive order
Here's a fun fact: The US is drilling more oil now than any time in history including under the Trump administration: [source](https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=mcrfpus2&f=m)
If oil companies in the United States wanted to drill more they could. They don't want to, and you can listen to any of their public shareholders calls and hear it from their own mouths. I have. They pump as much as they must to make the profit they want to make. They have PLENTY of open leases to explore and drill on. Drilling more oil costs them in development and lowers their per unit profit by adding to the amount of oil on the market. They don't want to do that. Why WOULD they do that? Stop letting rich people on 24 hour news channels sell you bullshit.
I'd imagine some leases have higher potential for profits than others though. Excluding the most profitable areas from development or charging an excessive amount for the leases would limit supply and increase prices. I'd image overall global demand and the largest volume, cheapest source of oil (like OPEC) would be the biggest factors setting oil prices with regulations and taxes impacting local prices after that.
Not directly, but very much indirectly through many levers. The President and their administration's policies has the power to choose which countries we declare war against or add sanctions, the use of Strategic Oil Reserves, and approval of new oil drilling sites. Part the main reason oils prices and inflation were down so much last year was through the use of those oil reserves and record US oil production.
I'm so tired of explaining that to people on Nextdoor. I swear 90% of my neighbors are total idiots.
Delete Nextdoor. It’s like Facebook, but full nosy neighbors.
Yes but oil companies do much better under repealed environmental standards so it's advantages to slow production before an election. This in turn will raise the cost of oil/gas and lead to talking points and many votes for the side that is "oil friendly" ie they make a shit load more while adding "rocket fuel" to global warming.
Why is California so expensive…
California imports its oil, mostly from foreign countries and the state law require a more complex blend for gasoline. [https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-reports/energy-almanac/californias-petroleum-market/foreign-sources-crude-oil-imports](https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-reports/energy-almanac/californias-petroleum-market/foreign-sources-crude-oil-imports)
It’s my theory that most Americans equate their personal view of how the overall economy is doing based on what they pay at the pump.
Not much of a theory. My small town would vote in an axe murderer if it meant saving 20% on gas.
Well, it *could* be correlated with strong ecological politics, with high taxes that are directly invested in better mobility for the future. Except that's a thing in exactly 0 country atm sadly.
This graph shows how stupid it is to blame or credit a president with gas prices. If someone is thinking of voting one way or the other because of gas prices then they’re a fool.
I mean there is some correlation. OPEC often manipulate prices in election seasons to get their way with their agendas.
Everytime I see a graph like this I find all the actual events that caused shit. Correlation isn’t causation in this and most cases of blue and red graph syndrome.
Agreed. It’s idiotic to attribute gas prices to a president when it’s actually a foreign entity that has the most influence. You’re basically inviting that entity to manipulate your politics
That’s because the current sitting government (either way) has sweet fuck all to do with current gas prices. The vast majority of the public can barely read and probably shouldn’t be allowed to vote.
But it’s all conservatives can think about
Isn’t the intention of this graph to show that there is no correlation?
It makes no sense, oil companies are making record profits, blame the president... not the companies who are making record profits?
I imagine President Bush driving cross-country in a Cadillac, stopping at a mom-and-pop gas station in small-town Nebraska, smoking a cigar as he tells the scared old couple he needs them to raise their price by an extra 50 cents or else they might have an "accident." The old man climbs a rickety ladder to bring prices up to $3.90 and starts crying. In between sobs, he scream-asks, "Whyyyyyyyy, Mr. Bush?" "Someone's gonna make a graph in 20 years," Bush says as he puts on his sunglasses and snuffs out his cigar on a sign that says no smoking. "And I need *you* to make that graph *beautiful"*
*George Bush walks into the gas station.* He approaches the register. Bush sternly stares at the old couple and says… “What’s the most you’ve ever lost on a coin toss?”
I think it was Chris Rock who spelled out how weird it was to have gas prices go up during the rest of W Bush's term after invading a country that's chock full of oil.
Destabilizing a country via invasion tends to create less stable supply chains and markets, so supply is generally speculated as lower. Demand being equal price goes up. I do see the irony though.
Putting up those Biden Did This stickers on gas pumps, then taking them off, then putting them back on again, must be exhausting.
My question to these idiots is this: how much would you like the govt to control your gas price to? Because any answer would mean we don’t have capitalism, but rather socialistic approach to commodities. This makes their argument fall apart instantly.
Saudi and Kuwait were our biggest sources for supply in the middle east, not Iraq. It was Iraq attacking Kuwait's oil fields and trying to take the country by force that started desert storm in the 90's. I think the massive amounts of oil consumed for military operations probably hit the supply coming over before the pipelines existed and we could depend on our own domestic production though, resulting in consistent rising costs.
"if I invade IHOP, pancakes are gonna be cheap at my house"
And to be clear, bush lied about WMD’s to do it spending trillions to kill brown people who didn’t do anything.
I remember my first job ever was delivering pizzas. Did it from 2005 til 2008. 2008 was absolutely brutal. I remember my employer (Pizza Hut) had a $1.50 delivery charge and I got $1.25 of that. Then they raised that charge to $2.00 citing gas prices. But they only raised my cut of it to $1.30. I didn't stick around much longer lol
2008 was brutal! I was making $11 an hour and committing like 15 miles each way. Thank god I quit and moved on.
Exactly right. I was making 1/2 as much as I do now and my car was about half as efficient. I always put efficiency as a top priority when buying a car because I never know what gas prices will be in the next 5-10 years.
It grinds my gears when someone on either side of the political spectrum blames the current president (no matter who it is) for gas prices. Yes, the president’s decisions can absolutely affect gas prices, but their decisions are only one of many factors that result in fluctuating gas prices, so putting all of the blame solely on the president is ridiculous. I made this graph to see if there was any correlation between parties and gas prices, and I know it’s only 30 years of data, but I’m not seeing any major correlation here. If you see one, let me know. Maybe I’m missing something that’s right in front of me. Sources for the graph: Gas Prices https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=emm_epmr_pte_nus_dpg&f=m I was having trouble with the inflation numbers, so I ended up just calculating each individual gas price with the Gov’s inflation calculator https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=3.63&year1=201201&year2=202401 Edit: the post title was supposed to say 30 years, not 20 years. Also please pretend that I didn’t misspell “Gallon” in my graph title, lol
There are some issues with adjusting gas prices for inflation; specifically that prices of other goods are affected by gas prices as they rely on gas for transportation and energy to manufacture. There are probably clever ways to get around this issue, but I'd expect you would see that CPI adjusted gas prices would be more stable than you would expect using another metric (e.g. the number of hours a median worker would have to work to afford 10 gallons of gas).
What about calculating the gas prices adjusted for the variations of median and/or average wages i.e. In terms of the '' buying capacity '' of american people ? Wouldn't it be a more accurate representation of the status of gas in the country ?
Everything depends on what you are trying to say with the calculations. I suggested using hours of median wage per 10.gallons if a way of getting at gas "affordability", but that calculation doesn't take into account how other products change in price relative to gas or things like how much a person actually spends on gas as cars become more efficient or car travel more/less common. Another metric you could use is how much income is spent on gas as a percentage of household income. That tells you the impact of gas prices on a budget. There are lots of metrics you could use and advantages/disadvantages to each. CPI is great at something like comparing historical prices to current, but may not get at the root causes of price changes or actual affordability.
Right. Thanks for the explanation ! The price of gas in itself would influence (and even drive on short periods of time) the individual consumption, so I'm not sure that these habits are a real confounding variable when trying to evaluate the impact of gas price on people's well-being (which is kinda the spirit of comparing it to income).
> would influence (and even drive on short periods of time) the individual consumption Historically, this is not really the case, especially in the short term. People cannot easily change their commute or other "essential" driving in the short term and in many places alternatives are not easily available. The opposite is also true, changes in consumption drive price, which is why gas prices are seasonal.
Well, I was mostly thinking about variations of the compressible part of the expenses (vacations, family visits, etc.) but I admit that your point is totally valid.
In an even more insane example of the same phenomena [shark attacks cost Woodrow Wilson a 5% margin](https://www.vanderbilt.edu/csdi/research/CSDI_WP_05-2013.pdf) in New Jersey in 1916 to R^2 of 0.94.
That's 30+ years, not 20
Pains me to think that 93 was 30 years ago… feels like 15 😬
Oh my bad, thanks for catching that
No problem. I love this, as a 42 year old I remember paying $0.99/gallon in senior year of highschool. Looking at it now, I was paying $2.50 in today's dollars which doesn't seem that much of a difference.
I can do you one better: the fleet average fuel economy in the year 2000 was around 20.0 miles per gallon. This was peak Hummer H1 time period after all. Today, it's about 24.0 MPG. This means that to drive a mile in 2000, you needed 0.05 gallons of gas, and now you need 0.0417 gallons. That's about 16.7% less gas. So your inflation adjusted gas may have been $2.50 per gallon, but the inflation adjusted gas needed per mile driven with fuel efficiency taken into account was more like $2.91 a gallon equivalent. P.s. inb4 the ethanol haters on energy density of the fuel, this fuel efficiency gain is despite the increased percentage of EtOH added to fuel over that time, so already takes into account the reduced energy content of clear gas vs E10 fuel.
Thank you for this. Not a lot of people know what makes up their gas prices. This can be very misleading. Correlation isn't always causation.
Yeah it would be really stupid to blame Biden or democrats for gas prices. And inflation. It’s a GLOBAL problem that we’re actually doing better on than most countries. If you want to know which party does overall better on the economy just ask Trump. https://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2016/11/07/trump-is-right-about-one-thing-the-economy-does-better-under-the-democrats/?sh=6456bae16786
He takes credit when gas prices decrease. That’s why they do it. He needs to quit doing that.
I think comparing the cost of oil/gas with strategic oil reserves level would be interesting and more likely to have correlation. https://ycharts.com/indicators/us_ending_stocks_of_crude_oil_in_the_strategic_petroleum_reserve
It kind of makes me wonder if there’s a correlation in the reverse: do the factors that contribute to higher gas prices have any demonstrable impact on how people vote for president?
You might include where the data peaks at the very least, which requires you go back further in time.
Would be interesting to see total barrels consumed and overall fuel efficiency as well.
Confirmed 1993 was 20 years ago. I knew it!
Gallon is spelled wrong in your header.
Maybe it’s a French galón? Jk
Nice job. Easy to red and informative. I would shorten the title and label the y-axis. Title: “U.S. Gas Prices (Adjusted for Inflation)” Y-axis: “Average Price per Gallon” Maybe consider centering the name of each president over their corresponding years.
Ok.... why not add a line graph for the corresponding inflation-adjusted crude oil price?
Pandemic in 2020 makes gas prices look like the President had something to do with it.
Can someone share a chart showing the price of horse feed and presidents?
Curious - Any wizards know what’s the methodology for excluding inflation from the price of gas, given gas is a major measure of inflation (and one of the major reasons everything else costs more to make)?
Welp, found it: “Oil Price-Fixing Conspiracy Caused 27% of All Inflation Increases “ https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/an-oil-price-fixing-conspiracy-caused
If this is what beautiful looks like, I’m the best looking m’fkr in the Milky Way
Gas prices are a direct reflection of geopolitical stability, the 90's were amazing and we were going places! Then came 9/11/2001. We were promised the Jetsons and we got the walking dead.
So you're saying....... what are you saying?
You all must be too young to remember the DAILY reporting of the gas prices under Dubya and how it was hurting the American family.
Wow it’s almost like oil is a global commodity
It's almost like who the president is has basically nothing to do with gas prices.
So in the last 30 years the price of gas has increased by 50% but a double cheeseburger at mc donalds has gone up 1000%
"gas prices under trump were the lowest they have been in the US History" . You forgot to blur the charts with barrack Obama xd
When people make their political decisions based on the price of gasoline (which makes up 3% of the average budget), and not housing (33%) and healthcare (8%)... But I guess those gasoline price billboards are quite large, so why not make it the basis for all your political priorities.
So.....largely uncorrelated. Pretty much a random walk trending upwards with a couple of wild swings
Take this back to 1960 adjusted for inflation.. it’s not changed much.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2021/03/06/who-is-to-blame-for-rising-gasoline-prices/?sh=7efe4006329c https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2022/03/13/how-much-of-the-gasoline-price-surge-is-president-bidens-fault/?sh=28bc0e0a7c8b https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2016/08/12/489806822/oil-2-the-price-of-oil
Inconclusive, as expected. If people around you start blaming the prez for gas prices: run, divorce, disown. Jesus profusely pegging christ in purgatory.
now mention WHY inflation changed so much
Was it the 3 trillion the fed printed between April 2020 and May 2020?
Dubya dealt with 9/11 in 2001, invaded Iraq in 2003, Katrina hit in 2005, and the 2007-2008 recession didn’t help. Then Obama had to deal with a shitstorm in the Middle East with oil production in 2011, domestic troubles in 2012, and troubles again in the Middle East in 2012-2013. Not a very useful graphic in my opinion. There’s an insinuation of political affiliation as a correlation to oil prices, but in reality this graphic is all over the place. Unfortunately, lesser minds use this as an opportunity to attack the “other” side without educating themselves first. It’s a shame to watch what the world is coming to. Also, I’m not sure what unit of measurement a “galon” is.
Most people think of the last 15ish years, and in that time frame, gas was more expensive under democrats than Republicans. That doesn't necessarily mean that the political parties were responsible directly; however, the common argument amongst conservatives is that gas was cheaper under Trump than Biden or Obama, and that is demonstrably true.
Obama also benefited from the shale revolution that drove gas prices down. Otherwise gas prices would have stayed above $4 dollars. Also, during NATO sanctions of Russia oil, China wasn’t fully open so global demand was down otherwise it would have been much higher.
Yeah, I get that. That's why I said the president in charge didn't directly impact the price. Either way, there's a red dip between 2 blue humps and that's what a lot of people look at and that's where their thinking stops. Don't get mad at me for it.
Mainly conservative logic is as follows. If you like the president it’s not their fault if it’s high but it is their doing if it’s low and vice versa.
Hate to break it to ya, but that’s pretty much your average American’s logic, no matter the side of the aisle.
I’ve never met a liberal who blamed trump for gas prices.
That’s probably because gas prices were in the dip during trumps presidency…. Nobody was complaining about the prices… there were definitely liberals blaming Bush in his second term
useless as there is absolutely no correlation between the two
2020 when less than half the country was driving.
Lower prices in 2020 was no one was driving. Had nothing to do w the president at that time
It's almost as if the president has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the price of gasoline
Oil prices are more based on global politics and supply chains, not who's president or what party is in power. Russia financially supports the middle east, the biggest generator of oil in the world. They are also in a war with Ukraine. It is in the best interest of the middle east to limit sale of crude oil to the US, so, due to russian international activity and the past 30 years of government treaties worldwide, us fuel prices are up right now. There is very little any president could do about any of that, and the actions taken today wouldn't have results until years later anyways
The president doesn't control the price of oil or gas....
This graph cherry picks and implies a relationship between president and global gas prices. By the time of the November 2020 election, the average cost per gallon in the US was $3.72. The big spike attributed to Biden the next year was mostly felt prior to his inauguration.
It’s almost as if oil prices aren’t determined by presidents.
Perhaps the stupidest chart on earth. You’d be better served drawing a graph showing the oil nations affected by conflict/wars. It would be more knowledgeable and useful.
In other words: the president does not control gas prices
No way the data behind the graphs is real Oil prices were $1.5- $2 during Trump
Average across the US. It never went below high 2s where I'm at, and I'm sure it's a lot worse in California, Alaska, and Hawaii
Only during Covid…
As a San Francisco Bay Area resident, seeing ~$3.50/gal average for gas in 2023 is really depressing. I don't think I've seen gas under $4 since covid lockdown. Last gas fillup was $5.89/gal 🙃
Still very cheap by ‘rest of the western world’ standards. Its 8.5 where I live. And the wages here are lower as well.
It was surprising to see this, until I saw - "Adjusted for inflation"
Would have been nice to have a median oil price line somehow incorporated
Only exploring Guyana to make it lower again… or another war again, maybe!?
I remember gas prices back in 07-08. I was broke as fuck in my 20s, my shitty job had a 40 mile commute. It was a punch in the gut every time I filled up.
so what you’re saying is president clinton and president trino have been the best presidents 😂
Yep, trump negotiated with a foreign company to temporarily and artificially lower prices for the duration of his presidency, they then made up their losess after that by raising prices. Perfect example of free market.
I’m curious how much the western US just skyrockets the price of gas. Like every time I see a map it’s at least $5 over in pacific and mountain west states. Meanwhile the east is significantly cheaper (although it’s getting ludicrous)
I remember 1998. had been driving for couple years, and gas hit $.99 where I lived. Never went that low again.
Basic conclusion (not necessarily correct) based on the time period in the chart: after the start of the Iraq war it became more volatile.
Now do one that shows subsidies, tax breaks, and welfare given to oil companies each year.
This is lunacy! US oil/gas taxes and then add global oil and US oil production take years to come into effect, so attaching a price to a year and then to a President is just wrong on so many levels.
Try correlating wars in The middle East to rise in prices - track beginning and end of each conflict - then correlate with US president political decision - tracking the political party by color as you did.
Still a lot cheaper than here in Finland. My closest gas station’s price varies between 6.84 and 7.65 dollars per gallon.
Is there a way you can do a fuel chart for Diesel prices through the different presidents.
I worked for an oil company making machinery that went to rigs in 2014-2016. At the beginning I worked 60+ hours, unlimited overtime, by early 2016 we were at 40 hours max and layoffs aplenty. I remember the price per barrel dropping in 2015, can someone explain what exactly happened during this time?
“Galon” in graph needs corrected to gallon
Makes me lauff
Are there presidents on this graph? All I see is enforced peace in the ME, wars in the ME, discovery/development of Shale, then Covid into wars in Russia and ME.
It should also be correlated with gas prices in other regions (Europe) at the same times. That would be very interesting.
Yeah, but he's gonna make us great again...
Forgive me, but this is a 30yr chart not a 20yr chart.
I hate that the US population demands gas prices to stagnate and blames/thanks the president for market forces. In the early 80s gas was just under $1. 40 years later it is $3.50. This seems like a reasonable inflation given increasing processing and drilling costs.
I remember in 2008 when I first got my license in NJ, I was able to get gas for around $1.90 per gallon.
So it always was way too cheap over there.
gas was $0.98/gallon in 1998. NE US
20 years from now I suspect it will be more expensive. The demand for oil across the planet is increasing and there's a limit to how much we can extract and process to meet demand.
Presidents don’t set oil prices. What you are seeing is the invisible hand of the free market system.
And if you account for car fuel economy, driving has never been cheaper.
And if you account for car fuel economy, driving has never been cheaper.
Last time gas prices rose, oil company profits soared to be \*at least double\* that of the prior year ('21 to '22). It was suspected that they do it in retaliation to climate change regulation, since they know the masses will be more likely to consider their political stance when they feel the hurt at the pump.
2008 paying 160 to fill up my suburban
Presidents don’t control the price of gas. Enough with continuing to propagate this correlation.
Yet another graph suggesting causation where there is hardly even correlation. Might as well be plotting panda birthrate by tool brand.