Trump said affordability is a ‘hoax’ in his Pennsylvania speech. What do the latest numbers show?

Trump said affordability is a ‘hoax’ in his Pennsylvania speech. What do the latest numbers show?

Here's how expensive it really is in America right now, in 10 charts.

Andrew Romano

Mike Bebernes

Updated

Thu, December 11, 2025 at 8:30 PM UTC

3 min read

A self-checkout area at a Walmart Supercenter in Miami. (Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

At a casino in Mt. Pocono, Pa., on Tuesday night, President Trump delivered the first in a series of speeches meant to ease voter concerns about the cost of living ahead of next year’s midterm elections — concerns that have fueled off-year Democratic victories in New Jersey, Virginia, Florida and elsewhere.

“We have to start campaigning, sir,” Trump quoted his chief of staff telling him. “We have to win the midterms and you’re the guy that’s going to take us over the midterms.”

In his remarks, Trump claimed that his administration was “crushing” inflation and getting much higher wages for Americans. He touted the stock market as “the only thing that is really going up big.” And he insisted that “prices are coming down very substantially” while blaming his predecessor, former President Joe Biden, and dismissing Democratic messaging about affordability as a “hoax.”

“You know, they always have a hoax,” the president said. “The new word is 'affordability.' So they look at the camera and they say, ‘This election is all about affordability.’ … And everyone says, ‘Oh, that must mean Trump has high prices.’ No. Our prices are coming down tremendously from the highest prices in the history of our country.”

So how high is the cost of living? And is it going up or down? To separate reality from spin — something that both sides engage in — Yahoo News is keeping track of the key numbers that show where things actually stand.

Inflation

Inflation is the rate at which the price of goods and services increase over time. The annual inflation rate peaked at 9.1% during the pandemic, then fell to 3% by the end of Biden’s term. After Trump took office, inflation dipped to 2.3%. But now it’s back up to 3%.

Prices

A lot of what happens with the prices of basic goods is out of the president's control. The price of eggs, for example, skyrocketed early in Trump’s second term amid a raging bird flu outbreak; it has since plummeted back to 2024 levels.

The average price of a gallon of gas, meanwhile, has hovered around $3 since last fall; bread has held steady as well. Yet overall prices have continued to rise since Trump took office, and the costs of certain things — beef and electricity in particular — have climbed at an even faster rate.

Tariffs

During his second term, Trump has imposed broad new import levies that have propelled America’s overall average tariff rate to 18% — the highest since 1934 — while raising costs for U.S. households by $1,600 to $2,600 per year, according to independent estimates.

But Trump’s tariffs have also raised hundreds of billions of dollars for the federal government — revenue that the president has proposed sending back to Americans in the form of $2,000 dividend checks.

Housing

The 30-year fixed mortgage rate peaked near 8% in 2023. It’s fallen since then, and continued to modestly decline this year as the Federal Reserve has lowered the benchmark interest rate. But mortgages are still about twice as expensive (6%) as they were in 2021 (under 3%).

Meanwhile, home values have leveled off and rent has continued to rise.

Jobs and wages

The COVID-19 pandemic triggered sudden, massive job losses in early 2020. But the unemployment rate went on to rapidly decline under Biden, falling below 4% in 2022. Since the summer of 2024, joblessness has risen slightly; the most recent report, from September, puts it at 4.4%, and private employers reportedly shed 32,000 jobs in November.

Real wages — which measure the actual purchasing power of your income adjusted for inflation, rather than just the dollar amount you earn — have climbed consistently under Biden and Trump.

Stock market

Stocks had been rising since late 2022 — but after a dip this February and March, the market really took off amid the ongoing AI boom. About 60% of American adults own stocks, often through their retirement plans. The other 40% do not.

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