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... just the impression that higher prices accounted for most of it. Depending on what days in those time periods that you ended up getting gasoline, there might be a significant difference in the number of gallons purchased in each of those months. In fact, if my rough average pricing is somewhat accurate then the majority of the price increase is from purchasing a larger quantity of fuel in the most recent period.
Your larger point is obviously correct. A twenty-five percent increase on a significant necessity when someone is on a fixed or limited income is a definite hardship. Doubly so for fuel prices since they tend to impact the price of other basic necessities (e.g. food, heating, cooling, etc.).
For many people, I think the inflation indexes are not an accurate indicator for their cost of living. It seems that medical costs, insurance costs, fuel prices, and food prices have been going up significantly recently; yet the price indexes don't seem to reflect how that affects a lot of people.
Wages for the lower and middle class has been essentially stagnant for decades, so if there is even minimal inflation from year to year over that time period, we are all falling behind. And I don't see how that trend is doing anything but getting more pronounced recently. There are lots of people hurting out there, but the wealthy seem to be doing as well or better the past couple of years.
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