There was a thread on this subject a couple months ago lampooning several media outlets for portraying this increase in savings due to lower gas prices as a bad thing.
To many a small minority of people, lower gas prices are VERY bad, because their jobs are tied to them in some way or another. Then there's the secondary spending aspect, i.e. guy loses his job at Exxon, now he's not buying a car or a Starbucks, etc.
FTFY
I'm not trying to downplay the real effects of much lower fuel costs on people who work in the industry, but that's a drop in the bucket compared to the number of people who use fuel and now have extra money. The overall effect on the economy is a big positive. Well, unless people are just saving it. Jeez, people! Get it together!
Not to mention the impacts on other industry. Think about it - oil is cheaper so manufacturing cost of... lets say pantyhose are cheaper. Yet when we go to WalMart, there is no difference on the price of your control tops. That money is either being saved or spent someplace before the checkout lines. Is it WalMart that's pocketing the savings? Is it the pantyhose factory? Its not the consumer.
So the real amazing thing is that with high volume users of oil (plastics, shipping, metalworking, etc.) saving money in their processes, only a 5% savings has been seen across America. I wonder what that number looks like in places like china where the actual manufacturing takes place.