“Just out: No Inflation!!!” is what Donald Trump posted on his social media platform, Truth Social, on Wednesday morning, but the latest data on inflation and the job market prove that’s just not true. The president has been going on for a while now, insisting that inflation is a thing of the past and that he’s already taken care of it, even telling a New York Post columnist that “Prices are way down for everything — groceries, everything”.
Unfortunately, the reality is that prices have actually gone up, not down, and the economy seems to be moving in the opposite direction from what the White House wants. The Federal Reserve has a 2% inflation target, and the latest report from CNBC puts the annual inflation rate at 2.9%.
This is a problem for anyone who took the president’s “Just out: No Inflation!!!” declaration at face value. We know many followers of Trump aren’t double-checking his statements, because he lies often. However, this recent statement couldn’t be further from the truth. The consumer price index, which tracks what consumers pay for goods and services, increased by 0.4% in August.
Trump is trying to lie about inflation
That’s the biggest monthly gain since January and pushes the annual inflation rate to 2.9%, which is up 0.2 percentage points from the previous month. These numbers were actually worse than what forecasters had expected, which is pretty discouraging. To make matters worse, it’s not just inflation that’s going in the wrong direction. The job market is faltering badly.
The Labor Department reported a surprise increase in weekly unemployment compensation filings for the week ending September 6. Filings jumped to a seasonally adjusted 263,000, which is 27,000 more than the week before. This marks the highest level for initial claims in nearly four years. This is on top of revisions to previous months’ jobs reports, which showed that the economy added far fewer jobs than initially reported.
The broader economic picture is one of sluggish growth, a manufacturing sector that’s badly faltering, and the worst job market since the Great Recession. You’ve got to wonder how the president can say, “We’re seeing phenomenal numbers. … I mean, really phenomenal numbers”. I honestly wish that were true. The whole situation seems to be linked to the trade tariffs that have been in place, which many economists believe are preventing the economy from improving. It seems like it’s a constant battle between what the administration says is happening and what the actual data shows.
You’ve got the president insisting everything is great, and then the Bureau of Labor Statistics comes out with numbers that show the opposite. I get it, a little political spin is to be expected, but claiming there’s “No Inflation!!!” when the latest data says it’s ticking higher is a whole new level of disconnect. It feels like night and day when you compare the rhetoric to the reality.
Published: Sep 12, 2025 07:50 am