MSNBC: "Gas prices hurting poor the most"...and I thought it was the RICH.

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

Rising gas prices have heavy impact on poor
Families living on fixed, modest incomes usually the first to cut back

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12424523/

For most Americans, today’s rising gasoline prices are an annoyance, not a serious financial hardship.

Then there are people like Kenneth and Edith Taylor of Baltimore, who already struggle to make their monthly social security checks of less than $1,700 last by cooking casseroles and soups at home instead of eating out and forgoing new clothes for as long as possible. Now, with neighborhood pump prices averaging $2.85 a gallon, the Taylors say they simply cannot afford the 80-mile roundtrip to visit their daughter more than once a month. “There and back is $10 worth of gasoline,” said 84-year-old Kenneth, who used to make the trip in his Buick LeSabre at least every other week.

The Taylor family’s increasing frugality may be a drop in the bucket for the world’s most voracious energy consuming nation, but it is not inconsequential and could be the start of a broader trend.

Recent government and industry data show that America’s consumption of gasoline is not rising as rapidly as it was this time last year, and analysts say families living on fixed or modest incomes usually are the first to cut back. If prices continue to rise, other demographic groups expected to trim their gasoline consumption are young adults, who tend to have less pocket change than their elders, and people living in rural parts of Texas and Wyoming, where long drives are a routine part of life.



Eddie McGee of New Orleans fills up his sedan at a service station in Dallas. Government and industry data show that America's consumption of gasoline is not rising as rapidly as it was this time last year, and analysts say that so far, it's families living on fixed or modest incomes who are probably cutting back the most.

[Poiuyt]

1. It does hurt the rich

Can you imagine the embarrassment they must face as they're driving their Hummers down the road?

[jedr]

2. You mean the same poor people who keyed my car when;

When they saw my Kerry/Edwards sticker, and called John Kerry a traitor and Hailed Bush as a war hero and called me latte drinking liberal and voted for what they got.....Don't get me wrong, I wish no one financial hard times , but payback is a bitch! The people who are being hurt the worst are those who supported him the most; and we tried to tell them.

[Democrats_win]

3. These reports always miss idea that this is a double edge injustice.

The rich man drives his 9 mpg Hummer while the poor man drives his 30 mpg Ford. The price goes up because there's thousands of 9 mpg Hummers so the poor man ends up paying more--being punished--for the foolishness of the man who refuses to economize. Worse, the rich man is living large in his Hummer while the poor man struggles to get his car through the snow.

This is an injustice.