Trump Doesn’t Understand Inflation
Having promised to lower living costs, the president seems keen to make American life more expensive.
By James Surowiecki, The Atlantic
Americans are very unhappy with Donald Trump, and they’re very unhappy with him for one reason in particular: the cost of living. On the campaign trail last year, Trump promised voters who were upset about inflation that, if elected, he would slash energy and electricity costs and “rapidly drive prices down and make America affordable again.” He has not succeeded. The cost of living has risen since he took office (inflation today is at 3 percent, up from 2.9 percent in 2024), and Americans are now as angry at him as they were at Joe Biden. In a CBS News/YouGov poll released over the weekend, 64 percent of those surveyed disapproved of Trump’s handling of the economy, and 68 percent disapproved of his handling of inflation.
Trump’s reflexive response has been to lie. “We don’t have any inflation,” he insisted earlier this month. Also: “Our prices are coming down very substantially on groceries and things.” But because the president can’t quite convince people that they are paying less for beef or electricity than they are actually paying, he has had to come up with some policies to deal with inflation. Unfortunately his plans are little more than quick-fix gimmicks that—in the unlikely event they are ever enacted—promise to make things worse.
