>The working poor hold jobs closer to home. Not too many dishwashers
>commuting from the Bay Area to Fresno... But office managers often do.
>
>No No... The lower middle/ middle class takes the hit. The ones that buy
>the SUV in puruit of the "American Dream", or at least the image of it.
The lower middle class couldn't afford an SUV.
The average US household spent about 3% of its after-tax income on gas & oil in 2003. The poorest quintile spent 7%; the richest, 2%. The sucky thing is that given US land-use patterns, most people have little choice about how much to spend on gas, so the increase has hit the bottom half pretty hard.
Doug