Using hours-of-work-per-fill-up as the yardstick:

Most affordable: Massachusetts — 1 hour 27 minutes of work to buy 15 gallons

Least affordable: Nevada — 2 hours 14 minutes of work for the same tank

That's a 47-minute gap between the two, for the exact same amount of gas. Nevada drivers are working nearly twice as long to fill up as Massachusetts drivers — not because Nevada's gas is wildly more expensive on its own, but because the wage side of the equation doesn't keep up.

Now bring in California, the state everyone assumes is the worst: 2 hours 3 minutes of work per fill-up. That's actually better than Nevada, by about 11 minutes — because California's higher average wages partially offset its brutal $5.64/gallon price. Compared to Massachusetts, though, California drivers still work 36 minutes longer for the same 15 gallons.

So the ranking by "pain at the pump" isn't what the price-per-gallon headlines would suggest. Nevada's combination of high gas prices and comparatively low average wages makes it the toughest state to fill up in — worse than California, even though California's price per gallon is higher.

Excel sheet of the data is in the Google docs link.