President Joe Biden has falsely claimed twice in recent days that the inflation rate was 9% when he began his presidency, leading to criticism from Republicans, including former president and current presidential rival Donald Trump. In an interview with CNN last Wednesday, Biden claimed that the inflation rate was 9% when he took office, a claim he repeated in a Tuesday interview with Yahoo Finance, saying that inflation had gone slightly up but was now around 3%. However, data shows that the year-over-year inflation rate in January 2021, the month of Biden’s inauguration, was about 1.4%, with the Biden-era inflation rate peaking at about 9.1% in June 2022. The most recent available rate at the time of Biden’s comments was about 3.5% in March 2024.
Biden’s claims that inflation is much lower today than it was at the start of his presidency are misleading, as the inflation rate is actually higher now but has seen a steep decline since the June 2022 peak. It is noted that the end of the Trump presidency was marked by unusually low inflation rates due to the economic slowdown caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. This false inflation claim by Biden is not an isolated incident, as he had previously made a similar false claim in October 2022 when discussing gas prices, wrongly depicting a figure from June 2022 as the starting point of the Biden-era.
The White House did not provide a comment on Biden’s false inflation claim in his CNN interview last week or in response to his repetition of the claim to Yahoo Finance. However, a White House official mentioned that factors contributing to the spike in inflation, such as global supply chain disruptions due to the pandemic, were in place before Biden took office, possibly explaining the misunderstanding in Biden’s claims. The release of new Consumer Price Index data on April 2024 is expected to reveal the latest inflation rate, with separate Producer Price Index data released on Tuesday showing the highest wholesale inflation rate in a year.
While Biden’s claims about inflation rates at the beginning of his presidency have been met with criticism and scrutiny, it is important to note the inaccuracies in his statements and the actual data regarding inflation rates during his tenure as president. The discrepancy between Biden’s claims and the reality of inflation rates highlights the need for accurate information and transparency when discussing economic issues. As new data is released, including the upcoming Consumer Price Index data for April 2024, it will be crucial to assess the true impact of inflation on the economy and make informed decisions based on accurate information.
