Gas in St. Louis Falls Below All-Time Historical Low

The chart above shows the cost of 1,000 gallons of gas purchased at the retail price from January 1980 to November 2008, measured as a percent of monthly per-capita disposable income using income data and population data from the BEA, and gas price data from the EIA and Gas Buddy.

At the current national average price of $1.83 per gallon, 1,000 gallons of gas ($1,830) would cost 5.22% of per-capita disposable income of $35,058. That's the lowest cost since December of 2003, almost five years ago. In St. Louis, where gas is available in some locations for as low as $1.33 per gallon, a thousand gallons of gas now costs only 3.79% of monthly per-capita disposable income, which is slightly lower than the February 1999 all-time historical low of 3.88%, when the retail price of gas dropped to 92 cents per gallon!