It feels like only yesterday that Joe Biden was out on the campaign trail trying to reassure everyone that the economy was in decent shape, even as people were watching their bills creep up month after month. Donald Trump, then the challenger, wasted no time calling out the rising cost of living and promising to get prices under control. It was a message that clearly landed with voters and helped carry him past Kamala Harris.
Fast forward to now, and the tables have turned. President Trump is the one trying to convince the public that the economy is ticking along nicely, despite the fact that prices went up 3% in the year leading up to September, and shoppers have started pulling back on big purchases.
Betsey Stevenson, an economics professor at the University of Michigan, says this is not an easy sell, especially when so many households can see their day-to-day costs edging higher.
“My personal takeaway from the experience we had [in 2024] was that you can’t tell people that prices aren’t up when they’re up,” she said.
And she’s not wrong. Even though petrol prices have dipped a bit under Trump, people are still paying more pretty much everywhere else. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has grocery prices up 2.7 percent over the past year, and electricity bills have jumped by more than 5 percent. That is hardly the sort of thing people overlook when they’re at the checkout or opening their monthly statements.
Stevenson puts it bluntly. “Trump’s claims about inflation are false,” she said, “and you can go to the grocery store and see it yourself.”
Despite that, Trump pushed back in a speech to supporters in Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday. He defended how his administration has managed the economy and brushed aside worries about affordability altogether. Trump even told the crowd that he believed the word “affordability” was a “hoax” cooked up by Democrats. It’s a confident line, but it doesn’t match the official data, which still shows a steady rise in the cost of living.
For many voters, the frustration comes from the slow grind of everything becoming just a little more expensive. Wages might be up for some people, but not enough to cancel out what they’re paying at the shops, on utility bills or for services that used to feel routine. It’s not something a politician can really talk away.
Trump may hope that reassuring language will calm voters’ nerves, but Stevenson argues that facts on the ground tend to speak louder than rally speeches. When someone’s food shop costs more than it did a month ago, it doesn’t matter who says inflation isn’t a problem. People feel the truth in their wallets long before they hear it from a podium.