It is now legal to pump one’s own gas at gas stations in Oregon, making New Jersey the only US state where it’s not. (Article link.) The surprising part of the new Oregon law: The price must be identical for self-serve and attendant-pumped gas. Also, at least half the pumps must have an attendant. I’m no economist,
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It is now legal to pump one’s own gas at gas stations in Oregon, making New Jersey the only US state where it’s not. (Article link.) The surprising part of the new Oregon law: The price must be identical for self-serve and attendant-pumped gas. Also, at least half the pumps must have an attendant. I’m no economist, but it does seem like the self-pump patrons will be subsidizing the “free” labor received by the others. I’m also no political scientist, but I wonder if this bit is intentional to dampen the possible success of self-serve gas. I’m also curious what the calculations on the part of station owners will be in terms of how much labor to employ. My estimate would be that if a $15/hr attendant takes about 4 minutes per service and each is $50, labor costs would be adding about 1% to the fuel price, but this would be much higher in places that are less busy and not working constantly, and lower in places that are busy enough to constantly have many overlapping cars being filled. There’s some sort of equilibrium balancing waiting times for attendants and gas prices that awaits…
That is from Raghuveer Parthasarathy.
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