Has overall inflation eased under Donald Trump? It depends on the measure

President Donald Trump says he’s improved Americans’ lives when it comes to the economy and inflation, two areas that polls show are top of mind for voters.

"Energy costs are way down," Trump told service members on the USS George Washington in Japan on Oct. 28. "Gasoline prices are way down. Grocery prices are way down. We have a little problem with beef. We're gonna get that down very quickly. But the prices are way down. … Inflation has been defeated."

He also said at a lunch in South Korea the next day, "We're down to a very low rate of inflation, 2.7%," calling it "almost a perfect number." It’s actually 3%.

Two days earlier, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent also touted the administration’s progress on inflation.

"When we came in, it was ‘egg-flation, egg-flation, egg-flation,’" Bessent said Oct. 26 on NBC’s "Meet the Press." "You know, egg prices are down. Gasoline prices are down. Overall, the inflation since President Trump has come in has come down."

On eggs and gasoline, Bessent has a point. Since December 2024, the month before Trump entered office, the price of eggs has fallen. And since the week of Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration, the price of gasoline has declined from $3.11 to $3.03 a gallon. (Trump was less accurate: Energy, especially electricity, is up, as are groceries. Trump was correct that prices of both ground beef and steaks are up.) 

But it’s possible to find particular items with falling prices even as inflation as a whole rises. Is Bessent right that inflation "has come down" overall?

It depends on what metric you use. The most basic overall measure of inflation is steady, or even up a little bit, depending on the time frame. But an inflation measure that excludes volatile food and energy costs is down slightly.

The White House did not respond to an inquiry for this article.

The most basic measure shows that overall inflation hasn’t fallen

We first turned to the consumer price index, a widely tracked metric from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. While the federal government has paused calculating some key economic statistics during the ongoing shutdown, it still reported the consumer price index for September in order to produce an annual cost-of-living adjustment for Social Security.

When economists study inflation, they typically look at the change in the consumer price index compared with one year earlier. Using this metric, inflation isn’t down under Trump.

During Trump’s first three full months in office — February, March and April — the year-over-year inflation rate fell each month. It began rising in May, June, July and September. (Inflation remained steady in August, but it didn’t fall.)

By September, the year-over-year inflation rate was 3% — right where it started in January (when Joe Biden turned over the presidency to Trump) and slightly higher than the 2.9% rate in December 2024, Biden’s last full month in office. The current 3% rate is higher than it was during the final six months of Biden's term.

Either way, by this metric, inflation did not come down under Trump. The upward pattern of the most recent data points are worrisome, said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the center-right American Action Forum.

After 40-year-high levels of inflation in 2022 under Biden, the Federal Reserve "had engineered a remarkably successful path to return to 2 percent, which has been disrupted by, especially, Trump’s tariffs," Holtz-Eakin said. "Now, inflation is at 3 percent and rising. I expect it to keep rising."

Calculating inflation beyond food and energy does show a modest drop

To better grasp what’s going on with inflation, economists sometimes prefer to strip out the volatile sectors of food and energy. When those are removed from the analysis, Bessent has a point: Inflation has eased under Trump, at least modestly.

The inflation rate minus food and energy was 3% year over year in September — lower than either December 2024 (3.2%) or January 2025 (3.3%).

Under Trump, wages are outpacing inflation

Price increases matter most to people when their wages aren’t keeping up. 

During virtually all of Biden’s term, wages failed to keep pace with inflation. 

Trump has a more positive story to tell so far: On his watch, wages are rising faster than prices, compared with their January levels.

However, it’s still early in Trump’s tenure, cautioned the free-market oriented Private Enterprise Research Center at Texas A&M University. 

The comparative data on inflation and wages isn’t "all that telling about where we might find ourselves in the coming months," the center wrote Sept. 22. "The first seven months of a 48-month term in office is much too short to render judgement." The center also said Trump’s tariff policies could reverse some of these trends.

Our ruling

Bessent said, "Overall, the inflation since President Trump has come in has come down."

Overall, year-over-year inflation has risen modestly to 3% on Trump’s watch, compared with 2.9% in Biden’s last full month in office. After stripping out volatile food and energy prices, which economists often do to analyze price patterns, the inflation rate has declined modestly under Trump, from 3.2% in Biden’s last full month in office to 3% now under Trump.

Wages have outpaced inflation under Trump, although economists warn that his tariff policies could put that achievement at risk.

The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details, so we rate it Half True.