White House boasts about chart revealing inflation surge under Biden’s administration.

The White House Celebrates Inflation Decrease, But Backfires

The White House tweeted a chart on Tuesday showing that inflation is lower than it was last summer, but it also revealed that inflation had skyrocketed after President Joe Biden was sworn in. The chart showed the massive increase in inflation from January 2021 to May 2022 when it reached 9% under the current president’s watch.

Great news: Today’s inflation report shows annual inflation is now at the lowest level since March 2021, and less than half of what it was last June.

This is giving families real breathing room. pic.twitter.com/l5k3B9WU2t

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) June 13, 2023

The U.S. inflation rate reached a 40-year high of 9.1% under Biden’s presidency, while the inflation rate under former President Donald Trump hovered around 2% and even hit an average of 1.2% in Trump’s last full year in the White House.

Conservatives React on Twitter

• Steve Guest, former communications director for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), said: “Great News: The admin points out that the moment Joe Biden took office, inflation took off!”
• Jeremy Redfern, press secretary for Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL), asked: “You’re bragging about prices continuing to increase?”
• One Twitter user asked: “Last year I gained 9 lbs. This year I only gained 4. Am I losing weight?”

Fox News contributor Justin Haskins argued that the White House’s argument gaslights people who don’t understand how inflation works. “This is so dishonest! [The WhiteHouse] knows most don’t understand inflation. Inflation going down does not mean there is more ‘breathing room.’ It means the rate of price increases is slowing, but still going up. We are paying more than ever! We need DEFLATION for prices to go down,” Haskins tweeted. In a follow-up tweet, Haskins added that it’s “outrageous that the mainstream press is not HAMMERING Mr. Biden for these comments.”

The slight inflation rate decrease in May came as a result of lower gas prices and increases in grocery prices and other items, POLITICO reported. The recent decrease in inflation isn’t likely to convince policymakers at the Federal Reserve that the U.S. is out of the woods because “core” prices, which the Fed mainly focuses on, rose for the sixth straight month in May.