Trump said ‘prices are plummeting’ in his State of the Union. What do the latest numbers show?

In his State of the Union address on Tuesday night, President Trump tried to ease voter concerns about the cost of living ahead of November’s midterm elections — concerns that have driven his poll numbers to all-time lows and fueled off-year Democratic victories in New Jersey, Virginia, Florida and elsewhere.

Democratic “policies created the high prices,” Trump insisted during his nearly two-hour speech. “Our policies are rapidly ending them. We are doing really well. Those prices are plummeting downward.”

The president — who last week claimed to have “won affordability” — went on to tout what he views as his economic successes: lower inflation, gas prices and mortgage rates, plus a stock market that “has set 53 all-time record highs since the election.”

“We have achieved a transformation like no one has ever seen before, and a turnaround for the ages,” Trump said. “Inflation is plummeting, incomes are rising fast [and] the roaring economy is roaring like never before.”

In her Democratic response to Trump’s speech, Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger insisted that prices are still “too high in housing, healthcare, energy, and childcare” and that “Trump’s reckless trade policies have forced American families to pay more than $1,700 each in tariff costs.”

But how high is the cost of living, really? And is it going up or down?

To separate reality from spin — something that both sides engage in — Yahoo is keeping track of the key numbers that show where things actually stand, and how they’ve changed since Trump returned to the White House.

Inflation

Inflation is the rate at which the price of goods and services increases over time. The annual inflation rate peaked at 9.1% during the pandemic, then fell as low as 2.4% in the final months of former President Joe Biden’s term. After Trump took office, inflation dipped to 2.3% before rising to 3%. Now it’s at 2.4%.

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 returned 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 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.

The future of Trump’s tariffs is very uncertain in the wake of a recent Supreme Court ruling that struck down the majority of the import taxes he’s put in place. Trump has increased the rates of other tariffs in response.

Housing

The 30-year fixed mortgage rate peaked near 8% in 2023. It’s fallen since then and continued to modestly decline 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 January, puts it at 4.3%. Likewise, private employers added only 22,000 jobs that month — fewer than economists expected.

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 both Biden and Trump.

Stock market

Stocks had been rising since late 2022 — but after a dip last 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.