US Inflation Hit Highest Degree in Historical past Underneath Biden?

Former U.S. President Donald Trump claimed throughout the Sept. 10, 2024, presidential debate with Vice President Kamala Harris that inflation was the worst it is ever been beneath President Joe Biden:

Trump introduced up inflation a number of occasions throughout the debate:

After I had it, I had tariffs and but I had no inflation. Look, we have had a horrible economic system as a result of inflation has — which is absolutely generally known as a rustic buster. It breaks up nations. We have now inflation like only a few folks have ever seen earlier than. In all probability the worst in our nation’s historical past. We had been at 21%. However that is being beneficiant as a result of many issues are 50, 60, 70 and 80% larger than they had been only a few years in the past. This has been a catastrophe for folks, for the center class, however for each class.

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I had no inflation, just about no inflation. They’d the very best inflation maybe within the historical past of our nation as a result of I’ve by no means seen a worse time period. Folks cannot exit and purchase cereal or bacon or eggs or anything. These — the folks of our nation are completely dying with what they’ve achieved.

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They do not know what an excellent economic system is. Their oil insurance policies — each single coverage — and bear in mind this: She is Biden. She’s attempting to get away from Biden. I do not know the gentleman, she says. She is Biden. The worst inflation we have ever had. A horrible economic system as a result of inflation has made it so unhealthy and she will be able to’t get away with that.

A radical examination of historic inflation information confirmed that nonetheless excessive it was beneath Biden, it was far worse within the Nineteen Seventies and early Nineteen Eighties. We have now due to this fact rated this declare “False.”

As Snopes has previously reported, inflation soared between January 2021, when Biden took workplace, and June 2022, when it reached a peak of 9.1%. Information from the World Financial institution, charted by the St. Louis Federal Reserve, confirmed client costs in 2022 had been 8% larger than the earlier 12 months:

(St Louis Federal Reserve)

However because the chart additionally reveals, whereas the inflation price in 2022 was at its highest in additional than 40 years, it was a lot larger in 1981 (10.3%), 1980 (13.5%), 1979 (11.3%), 1975 (9.1%) and 1974 (11.1%). As Trump was alive in these years, he has certainly seen a “worse time period,” inflation-wise, opposite to his assertion throughout the debate.

Trump urged there had been a 21% enhance in client costs to assist his declare. Previous Snopes reporting reveals he could have been referring to a cumulative grocery value enhance beneath Biden; that’s, the rise in the price of groceries between the second Biden took workplace in January and greater than three years later in 2024 — versus a year-on-year inflation price. Certainly grocery costs elevated 21.1% between January 2021 and August 2024, based mostly on information from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. It’s right that grocery costs had not seen such a steep enhance over such a time period, no less than since data started in 1960. The explanation this is not mirrored within the general inflation price is that the “basket of products” used to calculate the consumer price index consists of gadgets past groceries, resembling housing, transportation, clothes and medical care.

Our analysis has not revealed that different client gadgets had a 50% to 80% enhance in costs in the identical time period. We calculated that the electricity cost per kilowatt-hour increased about 30% throughout Biden’s presidency, due largely to elevated vitality prices introduced on by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

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