Let me quickly explain what the chart below shows...
Since 1995 (the furthest back you can easily obtain real consumption by category), nominal gasoline purchases as a percent of personal consumption has increased by 44% (gasoline was 2.8% of all personal consumption, now it is 4.0%), while it has decreased by 33% in real terms (we now consume about 5% more gas in real terms, while overall consumption is up more than 58%).
Source: BEA
Since 1995 (the furthest back you can easily obtain real consumption by category), nominal gasoline purchases as a percent of personal consumption has increased by 44% (gasoline was 2.8% of all personal consumption, now it is 4.0%), while it has decreased by 33% in real terms (we now consume about 5% more gas in real terms, while overall consumption is up more than 58%).
In other words, we are spending a LOT more of our paychecks on gasoline, which in turn is becoming a much smaller portion of our real consumption. It would be rather interesting to know where the U.S. economy would be if all this consumption was freed for other goods / services (i.e. the benefit for the nation of investing in alternative energy).
Source: BEA
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