Inflation is one of the first things critics bring up about the Biden years. But the full record shows something that often gets left out: after peaking in 2022, inflation came down quickly and stayed in a fairly narrow range for the rest of Biden’s term. Under President Trump’s second term, the trend has gone the other way.
What the charts measure
All three charts use the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U), all items, U.S. city average, published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Each point is the 12-month change: how much prices rose compared to the same month a year earlier. A reading of 3.0 means prices were 3 percent higher than a year before.
The 10-year picture
This chart from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (FRED) shows inflation over the past decade.
Yes, inflation got high. It climbed through 2021 and peaked at about 9 percent in mid-2022, the highest in four decades. Economists still debate how much of that came from pandemic supply-chain disruptions, energy prices after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, pandemic-era spending, and Federal Reserve policy.
What the chart makes just as clear is what happened next:
- A rapid decline. Inflation fell by roughly two-thirds in about a year, from its mid-2022 peak to about 3 percent by mid-2023.
- No rebound. Many economists warned that bringing inflation down would require a recession. The chart shows no shaded recession bar after 2020; inflation came down while the economy kept growing.
- Stability afterward. From mid-2023 to the end of Biden’s term in January 2025, inflation stayed between 2.4 and 3.7 percent. That is above the Federal Reserve’s 2 percent target and a bit higher than the 2017–2019 years, but far from the 2022 peak and steady from month to month.
That steady period is the starting point for the comparison below.
Chart 1: Biden’s final 19 months and Trump’s first 19 months
Chart 1 zooms in on the last 19 months of the Biden administration (July 2023 through January 2025) and the first 19 months of Trump’s second term (February 2025 through August 2026).
- Biden’s final stretch: Inflation started at 3.2 percent, touched 3.7 percent in August and September 2023, and then eased to a low of 2.4 percent in September 2024. It was 3.0 percent when Biden left office.
- Trump’s first year: Inflation kept falling at first, reaching 2.3 percent in April 2025. It then crept back up to 3.0 percent by September 2025 and eased to 2.4 percent in early 2026.
- The spring 2026 spike: Inflation jumped from 2.4 percent in February 2026 to 4.2 percent in May 2026. That is the highest reading since 2023, higher than any month in Biden’s final 19. It has since eased to 3.4 percent in July and August.
About the gap: The missing point is October 2025. The Bureau of Labor Statistics did not publish a CPI figure for that month because of the federal government shutdown.
Chart 2: Side by side
Chart 2 lines the two periods up on top of each other. Month 1 is Biden’s July 2023 and Trump’s February 2025; month 19 is Biden’s January 2025 and Trump’s August 2026. The dotted lines are trend lines, which smooth out the monthly ups and downs to show the overall direction.
- Biden (blue): The trend line slopes down, from about 3.5 percent to about 2.7 percent. Inflation continued to cool through the end of his term.
- Trump (red): The trend line slopes up, from about 2.4 percent to about 3.5 percent.
- The lines cross around month 11. Since month 14, inflation under Trump has been higher than at the same point in Biden’s comparison period.
By the numbers
| Biden (final 19 months) | Trump (first 19 months) | |
|---|---|---|
| Average 12-month inflation | 3.1% | 2.9%* |
| Starting point | 3.2% | 2.8% |
| Latest/ending point | 3.0% | 3.4% |
| Highest | 3.7% | 4.2% |
| Lowest | 2.4% | 2.3% |
| Direction of trend | Falling | Rising |
*Average of 18 months; October 2025 was not published.
What it means
The 2022 inflation peak was real, and it hurt household budgets. But it was not the end of the story. Inflation fell quickly, and by Biden’s final year and a half it had settled into a stable range around 3 percent and was still edging down.
Trump inherited that lower, steadier inflation. Over his first 19 months, the average rate has been about the same as Biden’s final 19 months. The difference is direction: inflation was cooling as Biden left office, and it has been heating up under Trump, with recent readings above where Biden ended.
A few cautions
- Presidents don’t set inflation directly. The Federal Reserve’s interest-rate decisions, global energy prices, supply chains, and other forces all matter, and policy effects often show up months later. That applies to the 2022 peak, the decline that followed, and the 2026 rise.
- The early Trump months carry Biden-era prices. Because each point compares prices with a year earlier, the 12-month change in Trump’s first months partly reflects price changes that happened under Biden.
- Lower inflation doesn’t mean lower prices. When inflation falls, prices are still rising, just more slowly. Prices that jumped in 2021 and 2022 did not go back down, which is one reason many people still feel the effects.
- This is one measure. Other gauges, such as “core” CPI (which excludes food and energy) or the Fed’s preferred PCE price index, can tell a somewhat different story.
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, CPI-U, All Items, U.S. city average, not seasonally adjusted, 12-month percent change; 10-year chart via Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (FRED).