The poor and the price of gas...

[Javaman]

So here we are gas topping $4 bucks, by and large, throughout the nation. (It's still under 4 here in Austin for the most part) And in some very few select areas in the nation it just hit 5.

Just like any price rise, it effects the poorest of this nation first and the hardest.

Due to how we have set up suburbia and how most of the choice real estate (closest to the various business/industrial areas) are financially completely out of reach for most people living on a very fixed income, those who do most of the labor in our society are forced to live many miles from their jobs and usually driving older and not always in the best condition vehicles to travel to and from their jobs.

There was a whole section of society that migrated to the "exo-burbs" during the late '90's and early '00's but most of those people moved due to the inability to afford to buy closer to their jobs and as a result had to move out to the nether regions to find something affordable.

As always, they are hit the hardest when ever the price at the pump goes up even a few cents. Me? I drive 12 miles to work. I'm lucky to have public transit nearby. And a recently installed light rail. I have options. But many in our society, do to lack of city or state funding, don't have any options other than their car.

Tax cuts have eaten into infrastructure repair. Tax cuts have stalled various public transportation programs. Tax cuts have cut into social programs that helped those who can't drive.

As we experience the republican crusade to remake our society into a land of indentured servitude, like most things, they may think long term, but that long term is only concerned with their own selfish want. What they fail to realize is something very simple regarding their long term thinking: if the poor in our society are unable to get to work, they have no labor force to keep their buildings clean, pick up their trash, wash their dishes, clean their houses, stock the shelves, pick their vegetables, work the register, etc.

The price of gas, while a heavy strain on the middle class, is in most cases, down right devastating to the poor.

I have written before that when the price of gas hits 5 bucks a gallon nationally, very bad things will happen.

Whole sections of society who travel many miles to work daily, are now finding themselves between a rock and a hard place. They need to keep their jobs, but the cost to drive to work doesn't make it economically feasible.

What happens then?

Many people here on DU offer up various fantastic proposals to solve this problem of some DU members who are beginning to face such a problem as the one I just outlined.

They say, "ride a bike", "move closer to work", "take a bus", "take light rail". As if this will magically happen and they can go on their day without worry.

Many places aren't bike friendly. And frankly, who honestly can afford to up and sell and move in this economy? And suppose you find a house closer to your job (minor miracle, who will buy your old house located many miles away?) Many places never had public transportation. And in most cases, light rail just plain doesn't exist.

All of the above requires funding and the time to actually construct it. We have neither the money nor the time.

Today, we have built entire cities around the car. And those cities have a type of public transit system, but is usually is so poorly designed that it's virtually useless.

But my point isn't about cities, I'm talking about the suburbs. We have built these various suburbs with no concept of public transit in mind.

They might as well be communities in the middle of a virtual desert.

No bus routes, let alone bus stops. No concept of urban planning other than to make a quick buck on quickly assembled poorly built homes. (I know what I speak of. I worked on some of those very same houses. And now work in the architecture industry).

Those houses weren't built with people in mind. If they were, there would be bus routes attached to them.

But alas, I digress.

We are probably facing, civilization wise, one of the greatest challenges in history.

And yet, as we all offer up very lame help and or advice to those who desperately need an answer to help them figure out a way to get to work, we find we have, as a nation, painted ourselves into a transportation corner.

What will happen to those on the outer reaches of society who are unable to afford to get to work? What will happen to the poor of society who can't afford to get to work? When neither group has any available means to get there?

We are facing something epic and we all turn our heads thinking of our own problems. Well, let me clue you into something, we depend on those folks. We will feel the effects.

There are unnamed millions of people in our society that make it run daily. Some work all night long, some get up way before dawn and don't get home until well after dark. They take care of all aspects of functioning of our society. And how many of us take the time to really take notice?

Offering up pithy answers as "solutions" to their very real problems is down right insulting.

Our transportation problem is an enormous concept to wrap ones head around, but it is something, whether we like it or not, we will have to deal with.

The high speed rail funding which vanished in the latest capitulation to the repubican stone walling of the national budget was a bad thing, buy it is nothing as bad as not having inner city or an exo-suburb public transportation.

I would have loved to travel via High Speed Rail to either Dallas or San Antonio, but honestly, how often would I have used it?

However, I do use the public transportation semi-daily. I see the people on there. I have noticed a sharp decrease in the ridership of the poor and handicapped. They can't afford it and a free ride is no longer an option to the handicapped.

It's a very sick thought that those of us in this society that need public transportation the most, either don't have it, or simply can no longer afford to use it.

[dkf]

1. Solar and wind energy plus electric cars.

Too bad we didn't do something earlier huh?

I bought my guzzling car knowing this is how it would be so I have no excuse.

[Marrah_G]

4. Unfortunately all three of those are way out of the reach of poor Americans.

[dkf]

16. Beats me why we couldn't subsidize solar like we did new home buyers.

Then the rest gets paid like an electricity bill.

It should have been our Apollo project.

As electrical cars become more prevalent they should come down in price. If we had started earlier maybe there would be used cars.

[Missy Vixen]

43. The lobbyists and campaign contributors will never allow solar to get a foothold

In the meantime, the ranks of the "have nots" will swell even more as those who previously could afford a house, car, etcetera, are priced out due to spiraling gas/heating costs, food costs, etcetera.

[shanti]

2. $5 a gallon gas

will affect way more than just commuters. it will affect family stability too. and the price of everything will go up.

[TheBigotBasher]

53. In the UK it is now $2.20 a litre.

That is an ouch (£1.30 a litre).

[Marrah_G]

3. Its so tough when gas prices go up

When you are poor every cent you have is used up every week.
When gas goes up you have to take the money from someplace else.
When gas goes up food and necessities also go up, again, that money has to come from somewhere.

The poor don't often have the option of public transportation, solar or wind, nifty new Prius or Leafs.
The poor get by driving old inefficient cars, pay the higher prices because they have to and hope to get through each month without the phone, electric or cable going out.

Before people gripe to much about the poor "wasting" money on cable.....remember that it's often the only entertainment they have.

[madamesilverspurs]

5. Public transportation,

would if I could. Nearest bus stop is several blocks away, and hauling oxygen while using a cane just ain't going that distance. If I could get there, a trip to buy one bag of groceries would require at least two hours, given the configuration of the bus routes. The city would add more buses and better routes but they need the ridership to support it, and the ridership isn't there because the buses and routes are inadequate - it's very much a chicken/egg situation. It is frustrating.


-

[Liberal_in_LA]

52. Public transport is $6 for day pass in los angeles, more than gas

for average drive to work, excluding overall cost of owning car of course.

[MedleyMisty]

6. I still think it starts with a voluntary removal of that labor

The people currently in government will not even think about this problem, much less try to solve it. They have encouraged this problem. They profit from it and they like it and they get off on the idea of Americans suffering and dying.

It will take decades if not centuries to fix what they've destroyed. But before we can even start fixing it, we have to take power from them. We have to stop their destruction.

We need a general strike. Go ahead and let them see how it is without our labor. We're the real Atlas, holding their world up. Let's shrug.

It's just - change is coming. Sitting around and voting is not going to do anything to prevent or slow down this change. We need to break past the barrier of defending the status quo, because no matter what we do the status quo is going to hell.

If we take control, we can at least do our best to keep it peaceful, to make it turn out as positive as it can.

Or we can not do anything, we can keep trying to work within the system or just ignore the whole thing, and the result will be pain and ugliness and violence and death.

The corporate government is a cancer on our society. We can either remove it and then start the long slow hard process of healing, or we can let it kill us.

[leftstreet]

11. +1 A Day Without A Serf

[Skidmore]

7. I live in rural Iowa and part of the plan under Gov. Culver was to

rebuild the light rail lines that used to exist in the state to connect population centers in the state with passenger service and to connect again with Chicago. Branstad and the new Republican house in the state legislature are ditching that plan. I would use it if it existed.

[L0oniX]

8. ...but Carter was a bad president. pffft

[dixiegrrrrl]

9. Another hit to the poor is increased cost of public transportation.

Which happens when gas prices get high OR low.

I watched BART raise prices when ridership was DOWN and when ridership was UP, different excuses for the prices hikes, but raises none the less.
If you lived outside SF county line, BART into the city to work, back in early 2000-sies, was 4.00 round trip..it is NOW 5.50.
Multiply that times 4 weeks...110.00 a month.
On minimum wage, that is a hunk of change.

[KittyWampus]

15. On Long Island, public transportation is being cut for budgetary reasons

[Thunderstruck]

10. We're burning way too much energy trying to maintain this failed experiment.

[bluesbassman]

17. Which one, Democracy or Capitalism? Because both are all broke to hell.

And you can't fix one without fixing the other.

[Fire Walk With Me]

12. Wall Street speculators are the ones purposely increasing the price of oil/gas to create recession.

Stopping them would be a very good start to rebooting the economy and helping the poor.

[Thunderstruck]

13. Please explain how they do that. Thanks.

[Fire Walk With Me]

14. Please use the google button on your computer.

Check for worry about mideast unrest and other ludicrous reasons.

[Fire Walk With Me]

37. Also check out the book or film "Enron: Smartest guys in the room". Exactly that...

Repubs are using similar/the same tactics all over.

[Terry in Austin]

48. Those bastards!

Gee, why hasn't anyone pointed them out before?

Now that we're on to their evil scheme, somebody with enough power to make them stop should make them stop, and then we'll have cheap gasoline forever!

Right.

[bobbolink]

18. Thank you! This subject just doesn't seem to register all that much with middleclass people.

ride a bike? So, if you are over 50, have bad knees, and live 25 miles from work, that is a fine solution? In the ice and snow? WHO is going to provide for you when you are hit by a car?

Live closer to work? It must be nice to be affluent enough to have those choices.

Ride the bus? And spend an extra hour -- maybe EACH WAY --- AND, somehow, pick up your kids and take them home, or take them to school or daycare in the morning... another few hours to do that? ALL of that assuming there IS a bus.

Do affluent people REALLY think that poor people just don't KNOW, or are too stupid to understand?

THEN... what is never talked about.. what about people who clean the homes of these affluent people? Do you really think you can truck cleaning supplies on a bike? Do you NOT know that it would take longer, thus meaning that there is one less house you can clean? The same with a bus... takes so much longer that you couldn't get to all your customers, therefore, you lose jobs. Ever truck around a vacuum cleaning and supplies on a BUS?

Same for lawn care and snow removal people, who work for themselves. NO. FUCKING. WAY. Yet, there just doesn't seem to be much understanding.... unless the people who work for you suddenly can't get there anymore.

What does it take to understand those who are NOT in your own situation?

[bobbolink]

19. Increased cost of gas means increased cost of FOOD, HEAT and everything else

Poor people won't be getting to jobs OR eating.

[GreenPartyVoter]

24. So true! It's systemic.

[Initech]

20. There's one good thing to come from high gas prices.

That is that we're seeing the re-emergence of electric vehicles.

Chevrolet, Nissan, BMW, and Ford are all planning to have them in the next year or two. Mitsubishi has 5 in the works. VW has a 313 mpg diesel-electric hybrid in the works.

[bobbolink]

21. Absolutely. It matters not what happens to poor people, as long as business prospers.

[Initech]

25. I'm not gonna disagree there.

But at the same time I don't get what it has to do with electric vehicles either.

[bobbolink]

26. "The poor and the price of gas.." Is the subject of the OP. Electric vehicles have NOTHING to do.

with poor people, unless YOU are buying.

[Initech]

27. I agree with that.

[taught_me_patience]

38. If more people buy electric vehicles

maybe the demand will go down and the price of gas will too. We're all interconnected in this economy.

[greenbird]

40. I would love nothing better

than to go out and buy a Leaf. I've always bought the most fuel-efficient car possible, given my financial ability, and I have since the 70s. As I age, and watch my financial situation progressively deteriorate, I really resent the flippant "just buy an electric car" comments. No offense to you personally, but they are at least $10,000 more expensive than the car I can afford. In addition, I live in the country. Public transportation isn't an option. There was a day when people here could actually catch a train into the city. No more.

[bobbolink]

46. You're seeing that dividing line, too, eh? The word "poor" just doesn't register with

so many people.

No wonder we are ignored.

I hope there are better days ahead for you!

[bobbolink]

42. Was there something about the word "POOR" in the OP that you didn't understand?

[taught_me_patience]

49. Where in my post did I say poor should buy electric vehicles?

Of course I didn't. The response was to your comment that electric vehicles have NOTHING to do with the poor... and I showed how that is completely incorrect. If more people buy electric vehicles, then demand will decrease and prices will drop for everybody... rich and poor.

[bobbolink]

50. When everything is taken over by the muddleclass, it would really be nice in the FEW posts there are

about poor people if it could be kept to that.

If YOU were affected like this, wouldn't YOU like to have some threads just devoted to YOUR particular pain, instead of hearing the same things over and over and over... that don't even pertain to you?

Really, could you respond on that kind of level?

[Dappleganger]

39. Fantastic, will you buy us one of those?

Because we haven't been able to afford a new car since 1996 and there's no way we can get it on our own.

[Missy Vixen]

44. Who's buying them?

We can't afford it, and I don't think we're the only ones.

This is a much bigger problem than most posting here even understand.

[bobbolink]

45. YEs, this is the REAL "class war".... the more affluent middleclass vs poor people.

They truly don't GET it.

[upi402]

22. When capitalism gets this cold

the long hot summr is sure to follow.

Worrying too much? I dunno.

[gratuitous]

23. Okay, every solution has been shot down

So now what? Gas has gone up a buck a gallon or more recently, and any "solution" will take too long or is too condescending or will cause people to change their ways or inconvenience them something fierce. Got a magic wand that will bring gas prices down until we can achieve consensus on what to do? Back when gas was under $3 a gallon, I suggested raising the federal gas tax by 50% and getting working on transit projects. Oh, what a heartless bastard I was! An extra dollar for a 12 gallon fill up? It was tantamount to slavery or Dickensian London, it was!

Now we're paying an extra $12 to $15 for a tank of gas, and every penny of that is going into the coffers of oil companies, and woe is us. Since large corporations have all kinds of dodges to avoid paying taxes, there isn't any extra money to invest in light rail, high speed rail, road improvement or anything else that might ease the burden of $4 a gallon gasoline.

So now what? We're further behind, we wasted months and months, and there's still no solution that isn't too time-consuming, too condescending, too inconvenient or too something else.

[bobbolink]

28. RATIONING.

But middleclass people driving gas guzzlers would have a fit.

They would MUCH rather poor people be hurt.

[demodonkey]

30. Ration what? There's plenty of gas to go 'round right now... it just costs too much.

Yes, certainly we need to wean off fossil fuels long-range, but right now there are enough gas supplies. People just can't afford to buy the gas.

[bobbolink]

31. RATION it, so there can't be any excuses of "supply and demand" and

stop the profiteering. It is unAmerican.

[unkachuck]

29. we had better....

....start looking for someone to run against Obama in the primaries because when gasoline reaches $6.00 a gallon this summer he's guaranteed to be a one-term president....people are not going to pay those extortion gasoline prices and will lay their revenge on Obama for being ineffective and useless....

....unfortunately, Obama is not cut from the same corporate cloth as the oil-boys and they will never do anything to help him, to the contrary....yet, Obama doesn't have the balls to battle big-oil and win....lose/lose

....the only thing that might help is price-controls but getting price-controls through our Corporate Congress will be impossible....of course there will be shortages, but affordable shortages....

[Auntie Bush]

32. y daughter just said it costs her and husband $550.00 per month for gas

[Imagevision]

33. Obama appointed a Gas Price Commission to investigate (hahahahahahahahahahaha)

[maryf]

34. K&R nt

[Starry Messenger]

35. k&r

[Martin Eden]

36. Long commutes in old gas cars is unsustainable.

An economy based on the consumption of fossil fuels is doomed to extinction. Cheaper gas would only hasten economic and environmental catastrophe.

Any solution to a complex problem that includes the economic burden of transportation by those who can least afford it requires a multi-pronged approach. First and foremost is the political will and organization to find workable solutions, which must include a better standard of living for the working poor. A higher minimum wage, better social safety net, and public transportation paid for with higher taxes on wealthy individuals and corporations is part of it. The development and widespread implementation of green technologies is another part.

Lowering the price of gasoline (by what means is unclear) may provide temporary relief for low income commuters, but it does not address the larger problems of which unaffordable transportation is but one symptom. I understand that real solutions will take time and the current political paradigm shows little sign of the necessary changes being implemented, and that in the meantime the working poor will continue to be hit hard at the gas pump.

I wonder how many commute long distances one person per car. A well organized system of car pool contacts could, in the very near future, significantly reduce the impact of high gas prices by sharing the cost among multiple individuals.

There is no magic wand to wave here, but counting on cheaper gas is IMO not a good strategy.

[REP]

41. And here in CA, there's a vote on raising property taxes, too - many can't afford it + gas & food

It's for the schools, but it doesn't address one district in this county spending $10K per student and another district in the same county spending $4K per student - plus no break for those on SS Disability, or protection for renters having their rents hiked to pay for the increased assessment. If it passes, a lot of kids will be missing meals.

[hayu_lol]

47. So far, it is mostly about gas...

but those of us who use oil or kerosene to heat with(winter is still here in my area)are feeling a two-pronged attack. I used to use fuel oil but it was so cruddy that my injector clogged. Changed to kerosene which burns cleaner but produces less heat per gallon. Have been using 100 gallons a month(approx. $350)since January. Heating will be a major problem next winter if the price continues to climb.

[Terra Alta]

51. Gas cards should be provided to the poor

something like EBT/food stamp cards, except for gas. To pay for it, we can increase taxes on the rich and cut the defense budget in half.. more needs to be done to help the poorest in this country.

[bobbolink]

54. "more needs to be done to help the poorest in this country. " THANK YOU!

That isn't a very popular sentiment, and I appreciate it when I see it... especially fitting for Easter Sunday.

:yourock:

[lib2DaBone]

55. Big Oil WANTS you to drive...

The Reason Foundation was successful in trashing High-speed rail in Florida... a large check went out to Gov Rick Scott after this decision.

Big Oil WANTS you to pay $5 a gallon.. and they are happy! (They could care less about green energy or the economy)


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reason_Foundation

[SammyWinstonJack]

56. Shorted sighted for profit greedy bastards will be their own undoing. Not much satisfaction in .

that.