Washington
CNN
—
For the second time in lower than every week, President Joe Biden falsely claimed Tuesday that the inflation fee was 9% when he started his presidency.
Biden was criticized by many Republicans, including former president and current presidential rival Donald Trump, for telling CNN in an interview last Wednesday: “No president’s had the run we’ve had when it comes to creating jobs and bringing down inflation. It was 9% p.c after I got here to workplace, 9%.”
Biden repeated the declare in regards to the inflation fee, albeit in barely vaguer type, in a Tuesday interview with Yahoo Finance. This time, he mentioned: “I believe inflation has gone barely up. It was at 9% after I got here in, and it’s now down round 3%.”
Details First: Biden’s declare that the inflation fee was 9% when he turned president will not be near true. The year-over-year inflation fee in January 2021, the month of his inauguration, was about 1.4%. The Biden-era inflation fee did peak at about 9.1% – however that peak occurred in June 2022, after Biden had been president for greater than 16 months. The March 2024 inflation fee, the latest out there fee on the time Biden made these feedback, was about 3.5%, up from about 3.2% the month prior.
In different phrases, Biden’s claims make it sound like inflation is way decrease as we speak than it was when he was inaugurated – however it’s really larger, although there was a steep decline because the June 2022 peak. (That peak adopted Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, which sparked international increases in energy and food prices.) And whereas Biden’s claims make it sound like the tip of the Trump presidency was tormented by excessive inflation, inflation was unusually low throughout Trump’s final months within the White Home amid the financial slowdown brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Just like a earlier false declare
Biden’s false claims previously week about general inflation are just like a false claim he made in October 2022 when speaking about fuel costs particularly. In each instances, he has wrongly depicted a determine from June 2022 as if it was the Biden-era start line.
A White Home official mentioned in a Tuesday e-mail to CNN: “The President was making the purpose that the elements that brought about inflation had been in place when he took workplace. The pandemic brought about inflation world wide by disrupting our financial system and breaking our provide chains.”
The April 2024 inflation fee will probably be revealed Wednesday with the discharge of latest Client Value Index knowledge. Separate Producer Value Index knowledge that was launched on Tuesday showed the highest wholesale inflation rate in a year.
This story has been up to date with remark from the White Home.