A week ago, during his address to the nation about the war in Iran, Donald Trump took a moment to repeat familiar and false claims about the U.S. economy. The president said Americans are currently enjoying “the strongest” economic conditions “in history” (a spectacularly wrong assertion) and that there’s “no inflation.”
Even at the time, the suggestion that there’s been “no inflation” in his second term was immediately recognized as an absurdity, but a week later, one of the Republican’s favorite lies suddenly looks even more ridiculous.
On Thursday, core personal consumption expenditures price index, which is closely watched by the Federal Reserve to gauge inflation, offered more discouraging news. On Friday morning, things looked even worse. CNBC reported:
Consumer prices spiked in March as the Iran war sent energy costs soaring and took the Federal Reserve further from its inflation target, according to a Bureau of Labor Statistics report Friday. Underlying inflation, however, was relatively tame.
The consumer price index increased a seasonally adjusted 0.9% for the month, putting the annual inflation rate at 3.3%, pushed by a 10.9% surge in energy costs.
The data was entirely in line with expectations, but that won’t matter much to American consumers who are struggling with the highest CPI in two years. What’s more, inflation in March showed the highest one-month increase in prices in roughly four years, when oil prices spiked following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The price of gasoline, meanwhile, saw its largest one-month increase since 1967.
For years, Republicans were outraged by rising gas prices during the Biden administration. Now, those same Republicans are quick to dismiss the spike in gas prices as the cost of security, even as those prices in nominal dollars are higher now than during Joe Biden’s presidency. MS NOW’s JM Rieger digs into the numbers. #trump #news #gas
In fairness, it’s worth emphasizing that core prices, excluding food and energy, showed a far more modest increase.
The trouble is, the cost of food and energy count.
A national CNN poll released last week found that only 27% of Americans approve of Trump’s handling of inflation. If White House officials were counting on that number to improve anytime soon, they’re likely to be disappointed.
