Last week, the Commerce Department released inflation figures for August, and what they showed was … more of the same. The year-over-year inflation rate last month was 3.4%, a rate unchanged from July, and one many analysts call “stubbornly high.”

For President Donald Trump, it’s a stubborn problem. Trump campaigned on a promise to bring down inflation, and millions of Americans voted for him to do just that. When Trump took office in January 2025, the rate stood at 3%. It dipped in Trump’s first few months, hitting 2.3% in April 2025. But it later rose, and now, after Trump has been in office 19 months, it is 3.4% in the new report. The bottom line is that Trump has not brought down the rate of inflation.

Of course, as many Trump supporters will point out, a 3.4% annual rate is wonderful compared to the worst inflation of the Joe Biden era. In June 2022, inflation hit 9.1%, a rate not seen since the bad old days of Jimmy Carter. But with the Federal Reserve raising interest rates, the annual rate fell to 6.4% in January 2023 and then kept falling, hitting 3% in June 2023. It stayed in that range for the rest of Biden’s presidency.

So Trump inherited an inflation rate of 3%. It’s fair to say that many Trump supporters........

© The Saratogian