The Seventeenfold Gap: What April's Strong Consumer Spending Numbers Are Hiding

In April, gas prices were higher than a year earlier - and so were wages. For the average lower-income household, the bump in wages was just barely enough to absorb the rise in gas spending. For the average higher-income household, the gas-price increase was barely a flesh wound - their wage bump was roughly seventeen times its size. So... same shock at the pump, dramatically different room to absorb it.

The first complication: it's prices, not purchases.