Let’s start with this new poll out from Politico, which shows nearly half of voters now think the economy is the worst they can remember. But critically, it’s not just Democrats who believe this. A large minority of Trump voters agree.
Almost half — 46 percent — say the cost of living in the U.S. is the worst they can ever remember it being, a view held by 37 percent of 2024 Trump voters. Americans also say that the affordability crisis is Trump’s responsibility, with 46 percent saying it is his economy now and his administration is responsible for the costs they struggle with.
Democrats would blame anything on Trump so expecting them to be reasonable or even rational is expecting too much. But 37% of Trump voters don’t have TDS. Presumably this is what they really fell.
This is a thorny topic but I’m going to make the argument that affordability is not a “con job,” as Trump said this week at the White House.
In remarks during a cabinet meeting, Mr. Trump railed against Democrats who have championed the issue, which helped the party secure several off-year election victories last month and is likely to be a defining topic in the midterms next year.
After ticking off what he claimed were trillions of dollars of investments and other economic accomplishments, Mr. Trump called the issue of affordability a “fake narrative” and “con job” created by Democrats to dupe the public.
“They just say the word,” he said. “It doesn’t mean anything to anybody. They just say it — affordability. I inherited the worst inflation in history. There was no affordability. Nobody could afford anything.”
I saw a fact check of this statement by Ken Dilanian, who pointed out that inflation was already down to 3% when Trump took office.
Trump said Friday: “We took over a mess. The highest inflation in recorded history.”
It wasn’t the highest in history, as CNN and others have noted in numerous articles. Trump could have fairly said the inflation rate hit a 40-year high under Biden in June 2022, when it was 9.1%, but that was not close to the all-time record of 23.7%, set in 1920 – and Trump didn’t mention that it had declined to 3% by Biden’s last partial month in office in January, the same as the most recent Trump-era figure for September.
Trump’s claim was also incorrect if he meant the Biden presidency set a record for cumulative inflation over the course of a presidential term; the Biden-era increase was much smaller than the increase during President Jimmy Carter’s term.
So Trump is using a bit of hyperbole but inflation under Biden really is the worst we’ve seen since the Carter administration. And while it’s true that the rate of inflation was down to 3% when Trump took office, that’s just the rate of inflation. The real issue, as he mentions in passing, is the cumulative inflation under Biden which we’re all still feeling.
Why are Americans still upset about inflation?
A: The *cumulative price change* under Biden is the highest since Jimmy Carter. What we’ve just experienced is rare in recent history.
You have to go back to HW Bush to see cumulative inflation over 10% in a 1st term. pic.twitter.com/XuMIuif4j2
— Heather Long (@byHeatherLong) May 30, 2024
Here’s another way to look at cumulative inflation which shows things going up about 20% under Biden.
Why are people so dissatisfied w/ the economy? B/c cumulative inflation since Q4 ’20 exceeds 20%, eclipsing earnings growth so that your larger paycheck buys you less; you’re demonstrably worse off – almost 4 years and no progress: pic.twitter.com/rwAY1O8WnX
— E.J. Antoni, Ph.D. (@RealEJAntoni) October 19, 2024
And here’s a comparison of cumulative inflation under Biden compared to Trump’s 1st and 2nd term.
Every time you read Democrats saying their priority is affordability, remember Biden ranks as the second-highest president in cumulative inflation among recent U.S. presidents, only behind Jimmy Carter.
If you want low prices, stop demanding more government spending. pic.twitter.com/FJvDFuaSij
— Daniel Lacalle (@dlacalle_IA) December 3, 2025
So Trump has a point that things were a historic mess under Biden and have been much better since he took office. But it’s also true that consumers are still stuck with that 20% increase in prices.
Of course there’s a lot more to this. Wages have also gone up cumulatively during this time but haven’t quite kept up with the increase in prices. So you have a combination of sticker shock (everything costs 20% more) plus a slight decline in buying power. Add those together and a lot of people don’t feel great about the economy. That’s the affordability crisis in a nutshell and even though the bulk of it isn’t Trump’s fault, he’s stuck with dealing with it in his 2nd term. Most people don’t blame the guy who was in office when the inflation happened, they blame the guy in office right now.
Joe Biden’s people spent years trying to argue with people about the economy. Remember the vibecession? This was basically the argument that the numbers were looking good so if people weren’t happy, well, that was just a feeling detached from reality. In fact, a lot of the people pushing the vibecession argument specifically blamed it on conservative media. Basically they argued that Fox News was pulling the wool over people’s eyes, making them think the Biden economy was bad when it was really swell.
I was pretty skeptical of the vibecession argument precisely because it was mostly lefties making a partisan argument which just happened to let Joe Biden off the hook. Back in February, Politico published an article taking a second look at the whole vibecession argument. An economist who looked at it closely concluded the people were probably right to feel down about the economy and the numbers were probably underestimating the problem, at least with a certain segment of the population.
Democrats spent much of the campaign pointing out that inflation had abated by Election Day, even if prices remained elevated from pre-pandemic levels. Moreover, many noted that wages (according to the prevailing statistic that takes only full-time work into account) had risen at a faster clip. These claims were based on observations drawn largely from the Consumer Price Index, an indicator that tracks the prices charged for 80,000 goods and services across the economy.
But the CPI also perceives reality through a very rosy looking glass. Those with modest incomes purchase only a fraction of the 80,000 goods the CPI tracks, spending a much greater share of their earnings on basics like groceries, health care and rent. And that, of course, affects the overall figure: If prices for eggs, insurance premiums and studio apartment leases rise at a faster clip than those of luxury goods and second homes, the CPI underestimates the impact of inflation on the bulk of Americans. That, of course, is exactly what has happened.
My colleagues and I have modeled an alternative indicator, one that excludes many of the items that only the well-off tend to purchase — and tend to have more stable prices over time — and focuses on the measurements of prices charged for basic necessities, the goods and services that lower- and middle-income families typically can’t avoid. Here again, the results reveal how the challenges facing those with more modest incomes are obscured by the numbers. Our alternative indicator reveals that, since 2001, the cost of living for Americans with modest incomes has risen 35 percent faster than the CPI.
Whether you agree with that or not, even if you think the vibecession argument makes more sense, what’s undeniable is that arguing with voters didn’t work. The 2024 election was a wipeout for Dems.
The same is true now heading into the midterms. Nearly half of Americans (according to the poll above) feel things are really bad. Arguing that it’s a Democratic con job is just the inverse of the vibecession argument the Biden people were making in 2023, i.e. people are being hoodwinked by partisans. It’s a losing argument. And, again, I’d say that’s mostly because the people are right to feel how they feel. Prices are really high thanks to cumulative inflation. Young people can’t imagine being able to buy a home in a lot of places.
What’s needed is actual relief and that won’t happen overnight. You can’t build more homes over night to help lower home prices. Trump can’t make the Fed lower interest rates, which would help a lot with the cost of big purchases. But here’s the flipside. Dems can’t fix these problems either.
Democrats are doing their best to capitalize on affordability prior to the midterms. Zohran Mamdani won by smiling confidently and promising lots of free things to New York City voters. In reality he can’t deliver anything without help from the legislature and the governor in the form of big new tax increases. To put it bluntly, the DSA has a great sales pitch for people angry about affordability, but they won’t deliver. All they can really do is promise. All Republicans can do is show voters they are making changes and therefore there’s no need to give someone else a try.
But the worst outcome for the GOP happens if Republicans try to convince voters things are actually fine and affordability isn’t a real concern. It won’t work and voters will get angry if they feel they’re being talked down to by the people they put in place to fix these issues. To wrap this up, President Trump was back on message yesterday.
The White House on Wednesday moved to scrap Biden-era fuel economy requirements, saying the change would help drive down automobile prices. It’s the latest attempt to convince Americans that their bank accounts are better off under President Donald Trump…
“People were paying too much for a car that didn’t work as well,” Trump said. “Now, they’re going to have a great car that’s environmentally friendly, but it’s going to cost you a lot less.”
“It’s going to cost you a lot less,” is the winning message next year. Stay on target.
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