White House is trying to hide inflation rate: Reports

The year-over-year?inflation rate?in January, the month President Donald Trump returned to the White House,?was 3.0%, reports CNN.

The year-over-year inflation rate in September, the most recent month for which Consumer Price Index figures have been released, was … the same, 3.0%.

The fact that the inflation rate eight months into Trump's term was unchanged from the one he inherited has debunked his triumphant claims that "inflation has stopped" after he "inherited the worst inflation in the history of our country."?So what is a White House to do when the real comparisons aren't working in its favor?

Trump's team has chosen to use some misleading comparisons - deploying apples-to-oranges sets of statistics to serve Trump's point. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt tried it from the podium on Thursday.

Kaitlan Collins, CNN anchor and chief White House correspondent, noted to Leavitt that inflation is about where it was last year, that?grocery prices are up, and that economic signals are mixed.

Leavitt?claimed: "Inflation is down from where it was, as measured by the overall CPI; it has slowed to an average 2.5%. This is down from what the president inherited. The president inherited 2.9% in January" - it was 2.9% in December - "today it's at about 2.5%. So we're trending in the right direction with more to come."

But the inflation rate is not "trending in the right direction," or at least wasn't as of the most recent available numbers (the November numbers come out next week). In fact, September was the fifth consecutive month the year-over-year inflation rate increased from the month prior, Consumer Price Index figures show. Specifically, the rate was 2.3% in April, 2.4% in May, 2.67% in June, 2.7% in July, 2.9% in August, and, again, 3.0% in September.
So what was Leavitt talking about when she spoke of Trump achieving a 2.5% average? She explained later in the briefing.


When another reporter?reminded her?that the most recent inflation rate is the same 3.0% it was in January, not "2.5%," Leavitt said, "No, it's 2.5%. It's 2.5%, the average CPI right now; I have it in front of me: In President Trump's first eight months in office, inflation, as measured by the overall Consumer Price Index, has slowed to a 2.5% average pace."

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