Energy costs are largely responsible for the rising index: the bureau said it accounted for more than 60% of the increase in all items. Energy prices rose 3.9% in May, after a whopping 10.9% increase in March and 3.8% in April. Food and energy prices are volatile—outside of them, the uptick in costs wasn’t as severe, at 2.9% year-on-year in May.
While inflation is still far below the most recent peak of 9.1% under former President Joe Biden in mid-2022, it is still above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target for price stability, though that target has been surpassed every month since March 2021. Higher inflation could lead to interest rate hikes, which may further diminish business and consumer sentiment and weaken the economy.
What Trump has said about inflation
Trump’s most recent response to inflation stands in contrast to his yearslong messaging when it occurs under Democrats.
When he campaigned for his second presidential term, he repeatedly pinned the blame for inflation on Biden rather than external circumstances. “We all knew that Joe Biden would be not so good, but few could have imagined that he would be such a disaster for this country, what they’ve done,” he said at a rally in Arizona in early 2022. At a 2023 Conservative Political Action Conference, Trump promised to “take care of inflation very, very quickly” if he became President.