The message on Truth Social was built for sharing: three words in capital letters, a parenthetical for emphasis. 'PRICES ARE DROPPING (AFFORDABILITY!)' [1]. It is the through-line of the administration's entire economic pitch - that the cost-of-living crisis is over, that the president has already brought prices down.
The most recent inflation report says the reverse. Consumer prices in the United States rose 4.2 percent over the year through May, the fastest annual pace in three years [1][2]. The rate has not been easing across 2026; it has been climbing. In February it was 2.4 percent. By April, 3.8. By May, 4.2 [2][3]. Measured against a year earlier, the cost of living is rising faster now than at any point since April 2023.
Data
| Feb 2026 | 2.4 CPI, % change year-over-year |
|---|---|
| Apr 2026 | 3.8 CPI, % change year-over-year |
| May 2026 | 4.2 CPI, % change year-over-year |
There is one price that fell, and it is the one the claim rests on. The national average for a gallon of gasoline dropped from 4.48 dollars in May to 3.99 by mid-June [1]. That decline is real. It is also the tail of a spike: gas reached 4.48 only after the Strait of Hormuz crisis sent energy costs up, and even at 3.99 it sits a full dollar above the 2.98 it cost on February 28 [1]. Falling back from a war-inflated peak is not the same thing as getting cheaper.
Away from the pump, prices kept climbing. Energy costs rose nearly 8 percent over two months [1]. Grocery prices went up again - 0.1 percent in May on top of a 0.7 percent jump in April, with bakery goods, cereals, beverages, and fresh produce among the fastest risers [1]. The Federal Reserve's own report to Congress on July 10 said inflation 'stepped up further this spring' [4]. The single category moving in the president's favor is the exception, generalized into a rule about all of them.
For a household, the distance between the post and the receipt is measured in what a paycheck buys. 'Prices are high, and wages have not kept up with prices,' said Michael Klein, an economist at Tufts University; 'people's real purchasing power has fallen' [1]. A worker whose pay went up does not feel a raise when the cart costs more, and that arithmetic is the affordability crisis the data says is still running.
One fuel got cheaper, off a war-inflated high, while nearly everything else costs more than it did a year ago - at the fastest rate since 2023. 'Prices are dropping' describes June at the gas station. It does not describe the grocery aisle, the utility bill, or the 4.2 percent that is the government's own measure of the cost of living [1][2].
