--- title: "Trump Says Grocery Prices “Have Come Way Down.” Federal Data Says They’re Up 3.4%" description: "Eggs really are cheaper since January 2025. That’s the outlier, not the trend, as inflation polls badly ahead of the midterms" author: "Nate Ledger" published: 2026-09-28T19:28:37.243Z modified: 2026-09-28T21:23:40Z url: https://rews.cc/a/trump-says-grocery-prices-have-come-way-down-federal-data-sa-26fe5a language: en tags: ["trump", "inflation", "economy", "politics", "groceries", "us"] publisher: "Rews (https://rews.cc)" --- # Trump Says Grocery Prices “Have Come Way Down.” Federal Data Says They’re Up 3.4% *Eggs really are cheaper since January 2025. That’s the outlier, not the trend, as inflation polls badly ahead of the midterms* By Nate Ledger · September 28, 2026 · https://rews.cc/a/trump-says-grocery-prices-have-come-way-down-federal-data-sa-26fe5a ## In brief - Trump told reporters grocery prices “have come way down” and, except oil, “everything is going down” - Grocery prices rose 3.4% on average from January 2025 through August 2026; overall prices rose 4.8% - Five of six CPI grocery categories are up; eggs are down 31.1% but are an outlier after an avian flu spike - Year-over-year inflation was 3% when Trump took office and 3.4% in July and August 2026 - Biden’s 9.1% June 2022 peak was a 40-year high but below the all-time 23.7%, and fell before Trump returned If you are a president with, as CNN’s Daniel Dale politely puts it, “abysmal poll numbers on inflation” heading into the midterms, you have a few options. You could wait for the numbers to improve. Or you could simply announce that they already have. President Donald Trump is going with the second one, and has been for months: an alternate reality, per CNN’s fact check, in which the country has experienced broad deflation on his watch. Here is the pitch, delivered to reporters on Sunday: “The prices for groceries have come way down from Biden. Almost every price has come way down.” Later the same day: “With the exception of oil, everything is going down.” And, two claims in one sentence: “We inherited the worst inflation in the history of our country, and it’s going really down.” Here are the numbers, from the federal Consumer Price Index, via CNN’s fact check. Grocery prices have increased 3.4% on average from January 2025 — the month Trump took over from Joe Biden — through August 2026, on seasonally adjusted figures. Overall consumer prices are up 4.8% over the same period. Up is the opposite of “way down,” which is the sort of thing fact checkers exist to note. The detail is not kinder. Five of the six big grocery categories the CPI tracks are up substantially since January 2025: cereals and bakery products up 3.3%; meats, poultry, fish and eggs up 3%; fruits and vegetables up 4.6%; nonalcoholic beverages up 6.3%; and “other food at home” up 3%. The sixth, dairy, is basically flat. A smattering of individual items has gotten cheaper; a much greater number has gotten more expensive. Now, there is one grocery item that has come genuinely, spectacularly way down. Eggs are off 31.1% since January 2025, and Trump cites them constantly. The reason they’re down, though, is that they spiked at the end of Biden’s term because of an avian flu outbreak — the price first went to the moon, then came back to earth. According to the federal figures CNN cites, no other grocery product or category has fallen even a third as much as eggs. The single example that makes the talking point true is, statistically, the one item you would exclude if you wanted to describe the trend. Meanwhile coffee is up 21.8% and the beef and veal category is up 16.5%, which is what the rest of the cart looks like. The oil exception deserves the same treatment. Oil prices have indeed jumped since Trump launched a war with Iran in late February. But “everything” else is not going down: federal figures show dozens of products were more expensive in August than either a month or a year earlier, with food, shelter and new vehicles among the notables. The exception turns out to be one of the few things accurately described. Then there’s the baseline. The year-over-year inflation rate was 2.9% in December 2024, Biden’s last full month, and 3% in January 2025 — lower, not higher, than the 3.4% recorded in both July and August of this year. Trump could fairly say Biden’s peak of 9.1% in June 2022 was the highest in more than 40 years, but even that was nowhere near the all-time high of 23.7%, and it had fallen significantly before he returned to office. The rate has been above 3% in each of the six months since the Iran war began. I think the interesting question is what the repetition is for, and the answer is presumably that it polls better than the truth. Trump’s advisers have been open about building the fall around turnout and presidential visibility rather than persuasion — we wrote about [the midterm plan](https://rews.cc/a/trump-s-midterm-plan-no-persuasion-just-turnout-and-a-very-b-813f22) — and a voter who hears “groceries are way down” often enough may at least conclude that someone, somewhere, thinks so. The awkward part is that the CPI keeps publishing every month, and CNN keeps a searchable graphic of the actual figures. It’s possible the rate declines in September and beyond, as CNN notes. Until then, the communication strategy remains what it was in the summer: say the other thing.