For many, 13% of income on Gasoline, already

NYT on the realities of seeing the (rural) USA in your Chevrolet

A trip from Tchula to the nearest sizable town about 15 minutes away can cost him [Anthony Clarkc] $25 roundtrip — for the driving and the waiting. That is about 10 percent of what he makes in a week.

Taking a break under some cottonwood trees beside a drainage ditch filled with buzzing mosquitoes, Mr. Clark and members of his work crew spoke of the big and little changes that higher gas prices have brought. The extra dollars spent at the pump mean electric bills are going unpaid and macaroni is replacing meat at supper. Donations to church are being put off, and video rentals are now unaffordable.

Making the rounds last week on the intertoobz was a piece on already pinched rural school districts cutting to 4 days to save on naturaly heavy bus fuel expense. This piece finds similar stuff on costs of doing year-round public business:

Local governments are leaving grass high along the roads and doing fewer road repairs to save on fuel costs. The Holmes County government has cut the work week to four days to give workers gasoline relief (keeping the same total of hours), and politicians are even considering replacing sanitation workers with prison inmates on some shifts to conserve money for fuel.

The article goes on to offer some sobering realities via surveys on lower-wage household budget choices. Here we go again -- Laissez faire will undoubtedly beget a cycle of "lazy" fairy tales when, in actuality, basic economics/incentive/cost benefit calculus/whatevah kick in:

Sociologists and economists who study rural poverty say the gasoline crisis in the rural South, if it persists, could accelerate population loss and decrease the tax base in some areas as more people move closer to urban manufacturing jobs. They warn that the high cost of driving makes low-wage labor even less attractive to workers, especially those who also have to pay for child care and can live off welfare and food stamps.

“As gas prices rise, working less could be the economically rational choice,” said Tim Slack, a sociologist at Louisiana State University who studies rural poverty. “That would mean lower incomes for the poor and greater distance from the mainstream.”

A lot of awakening "low information voters" should be pitch-fork-motivated come September/October's $6-7 per gallon. (Some transport-conscious clients and business friends around here are preparing their staffs and ops models for just that eventuality.) Come to think, I had Little League and swim obligations this weekend and travel cost was only second-place conversationally to the heat, but let's leave utilities out of this post since we're packing on enough gloom. Umm, so yeah, Have a nice day! =)