Even if his math is correct, it’s a stupid point cause our incomes haven’t matched inflation and that’s all that really matters.
this post was submitted on 25 Dec 2025
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Our incomes should have matched productivity to get ahead. Matching inflation is just treading water.
We drowning
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Not to mention that gas is a larger part of the average persons budget than it was 72 years ago. We live in a car distopia without any good public transit. It's also why looking at a single thing like gas prices is a dumb way to judge how affordable living is.
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Why the fuck is a 92 year old man still actively holding office?
And what insane political system would allow this to happen?
This is elder abuse!
You mean the elderly is abusing us, I totally agree
In this case both works.
This guy doesn't get to enjoy his pension, while younger generations has to wait longer to get actual representation of their views among serving politicians.
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Chuck Grassley is 92 years old.
He was college age from 1951-ish to 1954-ish.
Gas prices were $0.27 to $0.29 a gallon back then.
https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/fact-741-august-20-2012-historical-gasoline-prices-1929-2011
Adjusted for inflation, that's $3.37 to $3.49 today...
https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/
Buuuuut... Another way of looking at it...
The minimum wage in the early 1950s was $0.75/hr.
https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/minimum-wage/history/chart
So a gallon of gas was between 36% and 39% of an hours worth of minimum wage work.
The current minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. A gallon of gas at the current average of $2.847 is 39% of an hours worth of minimum wage work.
Almost as if inflation is a function of energy prices, as everything we consume requires energy to produce and transport.
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Actually kinda cool stats.
Well ... fuck, I just got done grabbing the BLS inflation calculation for .25 from 1973 and that's $3.05 today but your post is just already here making me feel silly for even thinking about commenting.
Cool stats though, it's interesting to see how the cost has more or less stayed in line with inflation. I think that's what you'd expect to see with most commodities from that time to now, but I'm also an idiot who got like a C in my macroeconomics class so I don't really know.
… if only the most expensive things stayed the same ratio - like mortgage/rent, health insurance, retirement, college. Minimum wage is $7.25, rent costs $1.5k. Got an A in macro, but only a B in micro. I wonder what happened…
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If my napkin math is right*, he was in college between 1951 and 1956; with gas ranging from .24 to .27 dollars a gallon.
Adjusting for inflation that’s be about $2.40.
Sunday I paid 2.90 at Costco. It seems he’s full of shit.
(My napkin math is notorious for breaking the laws of physics. Best do your own… or else we might end up dividing by zero.)
For some bizarre reason I was able to get gas at $2.05 on Monday.
The next day it was back to $2.92.
Must have been a weird price war between a handful of stations that day.
Or someone messed up programming the machine.
But still, that’s a score.
I checked around and about half the gas stations in the area were around $2.05 and half were around $2.90.
It's possible one was accidentally set and a bunch of other gas stations price matched (possibly automatically?)
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I've noticed that a common sign of dementia is thinking gas costs what it did decades ago. My step dad would be sent in to pay for gas and he'd come back thinking $10 was more than enough to fill the tank. This was when gas was $4+ a gallon.
Chuck's math is 25¢ a gallon. As you point out that is right about the price it was when he was in his prime. His post isn't just about lying for Trump. It's about mental decline.
You may be asking why my step dad with dementia was being sent in unattended to pay for gas when you could pay at the pump. Denial by his primary caregiver was also a factor. Make him do as many normal things as possible and then be shocked when they didn't work out.
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It's apparently $3 adjusted for inflation.
Problem is our wages have not adjusted for inflation
I'm sorry. "as a college student", "72 yrs ago". You guys really need to cap the age at which a person is allowed to make decisions that impact the lives of millions of people. Jeez, at least make cognitive testing mandatory.
Meanwhile everything else is much more expensive today.
Gas could double in price and it would still be the least of my concerns.
But his math is correct?
¢25 in 1953, 72 years ago, is $3.03 when adjusted for inflation according to US Inflation Calculator.
And the current gas price is $2.4 per gallon in Iowa where he is from. (Not sure where he went to college but whatever.)
It's ¢60 cheaper per gallon now, when adjusted for inflation.
If he's right about the price he paid, he's also right about it being cheaper now.
Surely Trump didn't help during all these 72 years but the math is correct, even if the logic is flawed.
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Guys, why aren't you giving Trump credit for 72 years of progress in petroleum engineering and decades of wars for oil?
Adjusted for inflation from '53 to today that’s like $3 per gallon. Converted to metrics I understand that’s like 0,68€ a liter. That’s that‘s about a third of what you pay in Germany these days (incl. tax) on a bad day. (Typically around 1,80€/l)
My version of 'adjusted for inflation' is to look at what a paycheck could cover.
In 1960, the minimum wage was $1.00/hour and the average US home was $11,000.00 A high school graduate could own their own home. In those days, $1 million would buy you two fine homes, a fleet of cars, and enough left over to live off the income.
In German we‘d call that kaufkraftbereinigt. Adjusted for purchasing power.
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If elected, I'll make gas even more expensive, and spend the tax revenue on bus/train infrastructure.
Shut up and take my vote!
25 years ago, I regularly filled my tank for $1/gallon. Gas prices have more than quadrupled in 25 years.
To be fair, it's also become more difficult to get oil, relying on methods such as fracking. But also, OPEC.
What if he can math but knows his constituents can't or won't.
Americans don't know how cheap they have it. Although adjusted for their engines and driving habits it's probably not that much different than the rest of the world
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That's because our taxpayer dollars are used to subsidize this obsolete form of energy. We should be focusing on energy of the future instead of energy of the past.
"the government shouldn't be giving people things" is the dumb argument I hear so often.
Every gallon of gas, pound of beef, gallon of milk, and such have been subsidized by the government. They just ignore/don't realize it.
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Mf is really over 90 y.o. I had to check his wikipedia page 😱
He's a really fucking old ass dude. When he was 20 years old gas was around $3.05 a gallon if you adjust for inflation. It's $4.50 near me right now.
But hey, let's talk about wages and electricity costs. Let's chat about rent and the cost of a house these days. Let's see what the cost of goods and groceries is doing. Most of us need computers, so let's talk about RAM and SSD costs under this regime that just dereguated AI and is nullifying state AI laws.
It's all worse.
Edit: let's just do the first two.
- prices for electricity are 938.39% higher in 2025 versus 1953
- prices for rent of primary residence are 1,177.60% higher in 2025 versus 1953
And yet the media just repeats this bullshit until most low-info Americans think it's the truth.
Just think how cheap it can go if the US drinks Venezuela's milkshake.
Yup at the low low cost of checks military budget oh. I love when we subsidize car drivers and oil tycoons with young people's lives, foreign state sovereignty, and the habitability of the only planet we currently occupy.
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"And we got free lead in it too!"
Yeah I wonder how we got the gas to stay that cheap. I wouldn't worry about it.
It’s still more expensive than the last time he tanked the economy. He can still fuck it up more.
Turns out OP can't math hahaha
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