Gasoline price in the United States and other countries

This is an archived report. The latest ranking is available here.

How many gallons of gasoline can you buy with an average salary in the Americas and around the world?

Gasoline price is dependent on many different factors such as crude oil prices on the international markets or taxes or margins established by gas stations’ owners. The value of 1 gallon of gasoline at the retail point of sale may change overnight, in some countries even by the hour.

Bearing in mind the fuel market instability, Picodi Analysis Team decided to analyse how many gallons of gasoline you can buy with the average wage in the United States and other American countries. For this purpose, we researched the average fuel prices in the first half of 2019 and cross-referenced them with the latest average wages in respective countries. As our study shows, possessing a rich supply of natural resources does not always mean that gasoline will be more accessible for an average consumer.

In search of cheaper gasoline

In our region, the cheapest gasoline can be found in Venezuela where 1 gallon costs $0.000000007. With the average salary amounting to around $29 we could buy… over 3 billions of gallons. But do the citizens of a country haunted by crisis and inflation have reasons to triumph?

In fact, the actual best ratio of gasoline price to the average salary in our part of the world can be observed in the United States. The average wage here is enough to buy 1245 gallons of liquid gold.

An average American places higher than an average Canadian (3rd place with 663 gallons) or Puerto Rican (4th place with 583 gallons).

Lower in the ranking are countries like Paraguay, Nicaragua or Dominican Republic. In these places, the average salary allows for buying around 100 gallons of gasoline, which is less than one tenth of the American ranking leader’s capacity. Still, the most disadvantaged are Cubans who can buy only 7 gallons of gasoline with their average salary.

World’s gasoline tycoons

In search of the highest indicator illustrating the amount of purchased gasoline, we analysed prices and wages in over 100 countries on 6 continents.

The leaders of the ranking are the Persian Gulf countries. In Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, the price of 1 gallon is around $1.80-2.20 and with the average salary we can buy there from 1300 to 1700 gallons of gasoline.

The high positions of countries like the United States and Canada can be explained not only by high salaries but also the amount of extracted oil. Switzerland and Luxembourg stand out with high incomes only.

The lowest amount of gasoline can be bought in Madagascar (11 gallons), Tajikistan (35 gallons) and Zambia (36 gallons).

One interesting example is Nigeria. Although it is a country extracting and exporting considerable amounts of oil and with one of the lowest prices per gallon ($1.50), the really low average wage amounting to $201 does not allow its citizens for buying a big amount of gasoline (132 gallons).

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Methodology

This report uses the average net wages according to the latest available data provided by offices for national statistics or relevant ministries. The average prices for the first half of 2019 in over 100 countries are based on data from globalpetrolprices.com and other local sources. In order to obtain the number of gallons, we divided the average wage by the average price of 1 gallon of gasoline. For currency conversion, we used the average exchange rate for the last 90 days.

Public use

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