Bolded for emphasis. Having lived in PA and worked in NJ, I would always fill my tank in NJ if at all possible. Why? Gas is and always was cheaper in NJ, and they pump it for you. Complaining of featherbedding doesn’t hold water when you have to pay more and pump your own gas next door.
In fact, using this site for Portland gas prices it shows the current lowest price of $3.85 at Costco in Portland. Entering Vancouver, Wa in the search box shows the lowest price for self-serve in Vancouver, Wa. at an Arco for $3.93.
The whole ‘it’s added to the price you pay at the pump’ cannot be demonstrated for either New Jersey or Oregon.
I grew up and learned to drive in Oregon. At 21, I was on my first out-of-state trip as the driver (I was soloing), headed for Seattle, and noticed around Vancouver that I needed gas. Could NOT figure out the pump.
Another customer noticed the Oregon plates and the total confusion and very kindly showed me how to operate the pump. 
Generally, IIRC, a major component of the price of gas is road taxes. (Or in the case of Oregon, I imagine, we should call it a “sales tax on gasoline”.) So a price comparison from state to state likely just demonstrates the difference in tax rates, with a small allowance for featherbedding.
Interesting. I don’t think I’ve ever bought gas in Washington, so couldn’t say for sure. Costco is a discount place, of course (and you have to pay a yearly fee to use the facility), and one can also get $.10 off a gallon at the Fred Meyer station if one has the shopping points. Then there’s the whole sales tax issue. WA has one, OR doesn’t. So perhaps the gas tax in WA is offset by sales tax revenue, while we pay full freight in OR. All speculation.
The self-service states surrounding Oregon; Idaho, Washington and California, all have higher gas prices than in Oregon where you aren’t allowed to pump your own gas and you appear to be saying this is because the gas taxes are much lower in Oregon? So much that it off-sets the additional cost of having someone pump your gas?
Oregon doesn’t have a sales tax true, but the taxes here are very high. Personal income taxes are the 2nd highest in the country, only Hawaii is higher.
California is #2, Idaho #25 and Wash. #9 in gas tax rates. Oregon is #17.
http://taxfoundation.org/article/state-gasoline-tax-rates-january-1-2012
If we were actually able to strip away the road taxes from the base price of gas, the additional cost of having an attendant pump your gas would be lost in the ‘noise.’
From the policy statement in the Oregon law linked to above:
Yeah, it’s all apples to octane, and I’ll stop now. The point I am trying to make is that it seems like a given that having a gas attendant pump your gas must be adding to the cost you pay.
But in actual practice it doesn’t seem so.
There are all sorts of factors that affect the local price of gasoline, and they mostly outweigh the additional cost of a minimum wage employee. Many of the smaller places are mini-marts that just have the clerk pump gas also, annoying both the line of customers at the pumps and at the counter.
Or brain science. 
Lampshaded in the 1st Back to the Future movie.
I had a whole post typed out comparing pump prices for cities where the gas taxes are similar to New Jersey and Oregon, but the hamsters ate it, so to hell with it. To summarize briefly, it doesn’t look like you pay less in states where you pump your own gas, as long as the tax rates are similar.
That’s very laudable of you to want to impose your will on those of us who want to pump our own gas and save a buck. If there were self-service stations you could always opt to go to a full-service station. With the current system, I have no choice.
It’s not the added cost of needing attendants to pump the gas, but the time involved. For your everyday lower traffic suburban gas station it probably doesn’t make a difference (I lived in Jersey for 2 years and visit friends there often and it’s rarely an issue), but many people’s experience with NJ is defined by the NJ Turnpike and that’s where it hurts the most.
At Turnpike rest stops there’s often long lines of cars getting gas. To meet expected high depand, there is usually a configuration of something like four islands of two pumps per island, each pump having two hoses (one for each side of the island). In theory, that’s 4 x 2 x 2 = 16 cars that can be filling up at once, but usually some of the hoses or pumps (for whatever reason) are coned off or not operating. Still, at least 12 of them are generally operating and filling up 12 cars… But there are not 12 attendants, there are maybe two or three of them running among the 12 cars, setting up the nozzle to pump fuel and then coming back later to top off and collect payment.
Time is thus lost in pulling up to a pump and waiting for an attendant to show up to start the pumping, then again when the fill-up is done and you wait for an attendant to come take payment. If it’s a cash payment that needs change, he may have to run to a cash register and back. And until recently, even paying with a credit card didn’t speed things up - the attendant had to run off to the register to run the credit card, and then would come back with a receipt for the driver to sign (instead of swiping the card at the pump).
This wouldn’t be so bad if cars typically took about as long to fuel as it took the attendant to move around anyway - like if every car at every hose was a Cadillac Escalade with a nearly empty fuel tank filling up - but the allure “cheap Jersey fuel” means that getting gas at major nexus points, like the first or last service areas on the Turnpike or just before/after the Pennsylvania Turnpike or where the Outerbridge Crossing is from/to Staten Island, sees a lot of people getting gas to top off their tank even when it’s just a few gallons. The result is that I’ve often sat there next in line to get gas at a Turnpike rest stop, looking at 5 or 6 cars that are done filling up but just waiting their turn to pay and leave. Grrrrr!
Compare this to: driver pulls up to available pump location; driver swipes CC; driver pumps gas; driver replaces nozzle and fuel cap and drives away, leaving the location available to the next person.
Where I normally get gas, they have two islands of self serve and one island of full serve. Usually there’s no wait at either self or full and they are both the same price. I always use self serve because it’s so much faster. I’m sure there are older or disabled people who really appreciate the full serve, but I just want to get out of there.
Unrelated peeve: The stations I do not use are the ones that disable the little tab that keeps the gas pumping while I clean the windows.
Maybe not 6 or 7, but I know at least one who did it. Did the whole full service thing too, but the customer paid a dime more a gallon for the privilege. What pissed me off was we had a mini-serve island that had the same service but the price was only a penny more and it was the island farthest away from the building. Of course people figured out that it was much cheaper than full serve with the same service. Durr!
I live in Washington, and every couple years I drive down to California for one reason or another. I hate passing through Oregon and having to use the full-service gas stations. I don’t know why exactly, maybe it feels too much like I have a “servant” and that bothers me. I don’t like to be waited on or called “sir”.
Unfortunately, my car’s range is about 40-50 miles short of being able to cross all of Oregon North-South without a fuel-up. Damn.
Except as has been noted, you’re not saving a buck, you are actually paying more for the privilege of the triumph of will to pump your own gas. Moreover I don’t know how things are where you live, but I can’t recall the last time I was at a self serve station that had the option of full service. There’s no choice but to pay more and have to pump it yourself.
Interesting fact.
Using gasbuddy.com:
The state and local tax on gasoline in Indiana is 43.6 cents per gallon.
The state and local tax on gasoline in New Jersey is 14.5 cents per gallon.
Indiana allows self-serve, New Jersey does not.
Despite the 29 cents in additional taxes in Indiana, the New Jersey average cost is $3.749/gal and the Indiana cost is $3.751.
Jersey City is located between Newark and New York City and is near some oil refineries. The lowest price there is $3.65 at 7-Eleven 565 Tonnele Ave & County Rd.
Hammond is located between Gary and Chicago and is near some oil refineries. The lowest price there is $3.53 at Grand Prix 403 E Gostlin St & Hohman Ave.
Make of it what you will.
Relevant clip from the Daily Show in 2006.
The rare times when I’ve actually had a true full-service experience in Oregon where they checked the oil and tires was great. One side effect of those rules seems to be that there’s a lot more of the old service stations surviving, since they can have a kid who does light maintenance and pumps gas.
The more usual situation though is that there’s the disinterested attendant who not only doesn’t check your car, but balks at letting you get out and do it. Even worse, last time I went through Oregon an attendant “topped off” my tank (i.e. kept filling after the auto shutoff kicked in). Nothing happened to my car, but I can’t help but wondering if there was an epidemic of evaporative emissions failures in Umatilla traceable to that guy.