Is it really that hard to figure out

People often say economics is too full of technobabble to be accessible to a broader audience. To a large extent I agree with this and I'm trying to do my part to fix this. But at some point I draw the line. Consider this CNN.com story about rising gas prices, particularly the part that says

A person making $9 an hour needs to work nearly seven hours just to pay for 15 gallons at $4 a gallon, according to CNN.com's gas calculator.

Do we really need a special calculator for that?