Trump Falsely Claims He Inherited 'Record' Inflation from Biden in State of the Union

In his 2026 State of the Union, Trump claimed he inherited 'inflation at record levels' from the Biden administration. This is false. The year-over-year inflation rate in Biden's last full month in office (December 2024) was 2.9%, and the rate in January 2025 was 3.0%. While inflation did hit a 40-year high of 9.1% in June 2022, that was far from the all-time U.S. high of 23.7% set in 1920. By the time Trump took office, inflation had already been brought down dramatically. The most recent rate at the time of the speech (January 2026) was 2.4%.

"I inherited inflation at record levels." — State of the Union address to joint session of Congress, February 24, 2026