Make Self-Service Gas Illegal

          I have an unemployed friend.  Keeping a constant paycheck was a challenge for him even before the economy married the weather.  (Remember when Miss Weather was only occasionally crazy in public and Mister Economy appeared strong and confident?  In case you just awoke from a three-year hibernation, Mr. and Mrs. Weather-Economy are an extremely toxic couple.)  Every time my friend and I talk he says, "Believe me, I'm always out there looking, but there just aren't any jobs available."

          There are jobs.  Plenty of them.  It's just that there are none in the field he has experience in.  That's the full-time-with-great-benefits field where one got paid a 40+K salary to accomplish 8-hours of actual work every 40-hour "work week".

          Today, politicians don't dare open their mouths unless they can find a way to jam the words 'job creation' into every one of their paragraphs.  Do they understand the difference between rhetoric and action?

          My two cents:  If the other 48 states (or the US congress) passed full-service gas station laws, like those in Oregon and New Jersey...with the stroke of a (governor's or president's) pen they would create tens of thousands...hundreds of thousands...over a million jobs.

           That's right, over a million jobs.

           There are approximately 240,000* self-service gas stations in the 48 US states that don't have full-service laws.  A conservative estimate:  five additional full-time minimum wage employees, per gas station, would be required to be hired if every state (or the US government) passed mandatory full-service gas station laws.  1.2 million new jobs. 

           PROS:   Gas station attendant jobs can't be lost to oversea workers.
                        Required training and licenses prevent illegal aliens from filling these jobs.
                        Fuel spills and accidents at the station's pump are drastically eliminated.
                     
           CONS:  Price increase at the pump (about 10 cents a gallon).

           Disagree with my recommendation?  Feel free to tell me why. 

* 2007 census:  118,756 gas stations + 97,508 gas stations with convenience stores + 21,248 other gas stations + 10,131 stations without employees = 247,643.  Oregon / New Jersey stations: 1,061 / 2,545 gas stations + 618 / 749 gas stations with convenience stores + 443 / 1,796 other gas stations  = 7,212.