Probably the best index of the real impact of gas prices on standard of life

You've gotta read this one -

"The S/W FI is generated by measuring the consumer-cost of a gallon of gasoline against the hourly minimum wage, multiplying that by the fuel efficiency of the average car (expressed as a constant) and expressing the result in miles."

Chris Kelly is no economist but this probably explains things a lot better than the inflation linked indexes that economists come up with that explain away the impact of higher gas prices by using a mix of inflation, increase in wages in dollar terms and so on.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-kelly/sw-fi-freedom-index-hi_b_48226.html