The Reasons Why The Truth Matters — Now More Than Ever

🔴 The Lies Trump Tells You About Prices

Trump has not just failed to lower prices — he has actively lied about them, repeatedly, using numbers that don't exist and data that says the opposite of what he claims. He has been fact-checked on this so many times, by so many outlets, that it is no longer a matter of interpretation. It is a pattern of deliberate deception about the most basic financial reality facing ordinary American families.

• "Prices are coming down very substantially on groceries."
  Trump told reporters this in Florida. The truth, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics: U.S. consumer prices have risen 1.7% on average since Trump took office. Grocery prices gained 1.4% between January and September 2025 alone. Ground beef — a staple — hit $6.75 per pound in January 2026, the highest level ever recorded, up 22% in a single year. Coffee surged 18.3%. Chicken is up 1% year-over-year, despite Trump claiming it's "lower today than when I took office by a lot." (CNN / CNBC)
• "Gas hit $1.98 in a couple of states."
  This was a lie. When Trump said it, not a single state had an average gas price below $2.70 per gallon. The national average that day, per AAA data, was $3.17 per gallon. The lowest price found anywhere in the country by GasBuddy was $2.19 — at one single gas station in Texas. Trump claimed it as a national achievement. (CNN)
• "Energy has come down incredibly. Prices are all coming down."
  Energy bills rose 13% in 2025, according to Climate Power's analysis. More than 124 million Americans experienced an energy bill rate increase in 2025 alone. The average American now pays $265 per month in utility costs — up 12% from last year. (Food & Water Watch / CBS News)
• He called the affordability crisis "a hoax" and "a complete con job."
  This is what he told Americans in December 2025, while 9 in 10 Americans said the country is experiencing a cost-of-living crisis in a nationwide survey of 5,000 people. 52% of Americans said they struggle to pay bills like rent on time every month. An equal number say they struggle to afford groceries. 78% said everything became more expensive in 2025. That is not a hoax. That is everyone. (Talker Research / Current survey, Dec 2025–Jan 2026)
• "Thanksgiving dinner will cost 25% less."
  He said this in 2025. It was false. The Walmart report he cited compared entirely different items from different years. Actual Thanksgiving staples rose well above inflation that year: potatoes up 7.3%, canned vegetables up 5%. When Americans sat down for Thanksgiving 2025, they paid more — not 25% less. (Food & Water Watch)
• "Egg prices are getting too low."
  He said this in April 2025 — with a straight face — as 49% of Americans said they were altering their Easter holiday spending because of the cost of eggs. For context: the average American family has been forced to change what they eat because of egg prices, and the president announced they were "too low." This is not a governing philosophy. It is a man who has not personally bought groceries in decades. (The Hill / Ziff Davis survey)

Harvard economist Jason Furman put it simply: "Consumer confidence is the lowest it's ever been. People are really negative about inflation." The Obama White House, he recalled, was careful never to brag about the economy while people were struggling — "because they thought anything we said positive about the economy risked people thinking President Obama was out of touch." Trump has taken the opposite approach: deny the pain, attack the people feeling it, and call it a hoax. (NPR)

Sources: CNN (Nov 2025) • CNN Fact Check (Apr 2025) • CNBC (Feb 2026) • Food & Water Watch • StudyFinds / Talker Research • NPR

🏠 The Real Numbers: What It Costs to Just Get Through the Month

Here is what American families are actually paying — not the "official" inflation rate, not the White House talking points, but the price of simply living. Overall prices are up 26% since 2020. The CPI has risen 26% in the past six years — about twice as fast as the Federal Reserve's optimal rate, according to Moody's chief economist Mark Zandi. But averages obscure what is really happening in the categories that hurt most.

🍴 Food & Groceries

• Ground beef: $6.75/lb in January 2026 — the highest ever recorded. Up 22% in one year. (BLS / CNBC)
• Coffee: Up 18.3% in the past year. (BLS)
• Chicken breast: $4.17/lb — up from $3.97/lb a year ago. (BLS)
• Groceries overall: Up 30% since January 2020. (Bloomberg)
• Almost half of Americans say it's harder to afford groceries today than a year ago. Only 19% said food prices are cheaper. (Axios/Harris Poll, Sep 2025)
• Tariffs on everyday goods are projected to cost the average household an additional $1,300 in 2026, up from $1,000 in 2025. (Washington Times)
• "By the time you pay for groceries, that's your whole work week of pay gone," said Nick Marsh, a manager in Atlanta. (Bloomberg)

🏠 Housing & Rent

• Housing costs rose over 14% between September 2023 and September 2025. (BLS)
• The median age of a first-time home buyer recently hit 40 years old — the highest ever recorded, as home ownership increasingly slips out of reach. (Food & Water Watch)
• 52% of Americans struggle to pay rent on time each month. (Talker Research)
• 38% of Americans have already moved because where they were living became too expensive. Among Gen Z, that's 51%. (Talker Research)
• About half of Americans don't believe they will ever be able to afford living in their ideal city or state. Among Gen Z, two-thirds have abandoned hope entirely. (StudyFinds)
• Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent dismissed housing costs by saying the typical landlord is "your parents who, for their retirement, have bought 5, 10, 12 homes." The median age of a first-time buyer just hit 40 and the administration thinks owning a dozen homes is normal. (Food & Water Watch)

⚡ Utilities & Energy

• The average American pays $265/month in utility costs — up 12% in a single year. (CBS News / Century Foundation)
• Energy bills rose 13% in 2025 overall. (Climate Power)
• More than 124 million Americans saw their energy bill rate increase in 2025. (PowerLines Report)
• Trump's policies gutting affordable renewables, supporting LNG exports, and championing energy-hungry data centers are driving these costs higher — while he tells Americans energy is coming down "incredibly." (Food & Water Watch)

⚕️ Health Insurance

• ACA Marketplace premiums are up 26% on average in 2026. In some states, the hikes are staggering: UnitedHealthcare proposed a 66.4% increase in New York. HMO Colorado proposed 33%+. Washington state averaged a 21.2% increase. More than a quarter of all insurers proposed increases of 20% or more. (KFF / Peterson-KFF)
• For the 22 million Americans who relied on ACA enhanced premium tax credits, Congress's failure to renew them — with Trump's blessing — caused their monthly premiums to more than double in 2026: from an average of $888 in 2025 to $1,904 in 2026. (KFF / CBS News)
• Employer-sponsored health insurance: average annual premiums for family coverage hit $27,000 in 2025 — up 5.6% from the year before. Employee contributions for family plans now average $6,850 per year. (Inszone / Mercer)
• Medicare Part B premiums rose 9.7% in 2026 — more than three times the Social Security COLA of 2.8%. For 64 million seniors and disabled Americans, the Medicare increase alone exceeded the full value of their benefit increase, effectively making their Social Security a pay cut. (The Century Foundation)
• The cost of private health insurance has more than quadrupled since 1999. 87% of companies say health care costs for workers will become "unsustainable" within a decade. (KFF Health News)
• Two-thirds of Americans worry about affording health care. (KFF poll)
• 29% of Americans delayed or went without medical care in the past year. Among adults ages 18–29, it was nearly half — 49%. (Century Foundation)

🚗 Gas & Transportation

• The national gas average is $3.09 per gallon — slightly higher than this time last year, despite Trump's repeated promises to bring it down and his false claims about $1.98 gas. (GasBuddy / NPR)
• Full-coverage auto insurance now costs an average of $2,144–$2,158 per year nationally — up 43% since 2021. In Washington, D.C., the average is $4,017/year. (Insurify)
• Auto insurance tariff impacts have not yet been fully passed on to consumers. When they are, Insurify projects an additional 3–4% increase nationally in 2026. (Insurify)

📄 The Debt Spiral

• 29% of adults dipped into their savings in the last three months of 2025, up from 26% the quarter before. Another 29% reduced their savings rate. 28% increased credit card use. (McKinsey Q4 2025)
• 73% of Americans expecting a tax refund said they need it more than ever before — just to stay afloat. 60% said they need it earlier than usual. (Talker Research)
• A growing number of Americans are using Buy Now Pay Later plans just to buy groceries. "Consumers are borrowing more and more to cover the spending challenges they've got, and that obviously can't go on forever," said one economic analyst. (CNBC / LendingTree)
• Credit card delinquency rates climbed to the highest level in almost a decade. (Bloomberg)
• Raising a child is now considered unaffordable by 7 in 10 Americans — up from 58% just a year earlier. (Bloomberg, 2026 poll)

70% of Americans — in a Marist poll taken in December 2025 — said the cost of living in their area is "not very affordable" or "not affordable at all." 82% of Americans expect the cost of living to keep rising over the next two years. This includes 71% of Republicans and 70% of Trump's own voters. It is not a partisan issue. It is not a hoax. It is the reality of every grocery run, every electric bill, every insurance renewal, and every rent payment in America today. (Century Foundation / Marist)

Sources: Bloomberg Cost of Living (2026) • CBS News • CNBC Dec 2025 • CNBC Dec 2025 • Century Foundation • Century Foundation (Health 2026) • KFF • KFF Health News • StudyFinds • Insurify

🏛 While You Can't Afford Groceries: The $400 Million Ballroom

While 52% of Americans struggle to pay rent, while 29% skip medical care, while families put groceries on Buy Now Pay Later plans, while seniors see their Social Security eaten alive by Medicare premium hikes — Donald Trump is building himself a ballroom.

Not just any ballroom. A 90,000-square-foot gilded replica of the ballroom at his Mar-a-Lago private club in Palm Beach, Florida — complete with coffered gold ceilings, crystal chandeliers, and checkerboard marble floors — bolted onto the side of the White House where a historic wing used to stand. The East Wing, built in 1942 and part of the White House for 83 years, was demolished by heavy machinery in October 2025 to make room for it. The new structure will be nearly twice the size of the main White House itself.

• The price tag: $200 million, then $250 million, then $300 million, now $400 million. The project was announced in summer 2025 at $200 million. By October 2025 it was $300 million. Trump himself confirmed at a White House Hanukkah reception in December 2025 that the cost had risen to $400 million, with completion expected in 2028. (People / Yahoo News / CNN)
• "Zero cost to the American Taxpayer!" Trump wrote on Truth Social. The project, he said, is being funded by "many generous Patriots, Great American Companies, and, yours truly." The donor list reads like a who's who of corporations seeking federal contracts and regulatory favors: Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Comcast, Lockheed Martin, Palantir, T-Mobile, Union Pacific Railroad and 31 others. The White House hosted a private dinner for these donors — billed to "Establish the Magnificent White House Ballroom" — at which Trump raised funds for the project. (PBS / TIME / Fortune / FactCheck.org)
• Lockheed Martin — which received $33.4 billion in federal contracts in 2025 alone — pledged over $10 million to Trump's ballroom. Google, whose YouTube platform Trump sued for suspending his account after January 6th, is directing a $22 million legal settlement and at least $5 million more toward the project. Richard Briffault, Columbia professor of law, observed that many donors "have done significant business with the federal government." Former White House ethics lawyer Richard Painter was blunt: "Bottom line is, these companies want something from the government and they are paying for access to the President, hoping it will buy them what they want." (Fortune / U.S. News / FactCheck.org)
• Taxpayers will pay for it eventually — no matter what Trump claims. Experts told Roll Call that once the ballroom is complete, its security systems, communications infrastructure, staffing, maintenance, and operations will all fall under congressional appropriations — meaning public money will flow into it for as long as it stands. The White House did not seek Congressional approval to demolish the East Wing, did not submit plans to the National Capital Planning Commission as required by law, and provided no public review process whatsoever. The National Trust for Historic Preservation filed a federal lawsuit to stop construction. A federal judge declined to halt it. (Roll Call / PBS)
• He did this while firing the workers who keep America safe. At the same time Trump was planning gold chandeliers and checkerboard floors, DOGE was eliminating the FDA food inspectors who check whether your food is safe, the NOAA meteorologists who track hurricanes heading toward your home, and the scientists researching cancer cures. The message to the country was not subtle: his comfort is the priority; your survival is your own problem.

Sources: PBS NewsHour • CNN • Yahoo / People (Dec 2025) • TIME • Fortune • FactCheck.org • Roll Call • U.S. News

👷 Who Is Suffering Most: The Working Class Is Getting Crushed

The affordability crisis does not hit everyone equally. The stock market's gains flow almost entirely to high-income households who own stocks. The people who are truly suffering are the working-class Americans — without college degrees, without investment portfolios, often without good employer benefits — who are now making impossible choices just to survive.

• Working-class Americans are more than twice as likely as college-educated voters to delay or skip prescription medication (30% vs. 14%). They are nearly twice as likely to skip a meal (41% vs. 23%). More likely to tap savings, reduce retirement contributions, and delay medical care. (Century Foundation)
• Labor's share of income fell to its lowest level on record in 2025. The economy became more productive — but none of the gains went to workers. Everything went to capital. The rich got richer. Wages for the bottom half did not keep up with prices. (AP / Economic Security Project)
• 52% of the American population does not have the resources to cover what it really costs to live securely in their community, according to the Urban Institute's American Affordability Tracker. (Urban Institute)
• Previously affordable cities and regions are disappearing. Parts of Atlanta, Chicago, Columbus, Nashville, and Central Florida have all seen costs for groceries, health care, and housing rise faster than other areas that used to be considered affordable. (Urban Institute)
• The tariff burden falls hardest on those who can least afford it. Yale's Budget Lab estimated tariffs cost the average family $1,700 per household. Goldman Sachs found 94% of tariff costs are paid by Americans, not foreign exporters as Trump repeatedly claimed. Lower-income families, who spend a higher share of their income on goods, bear a disproportionate share. The Tax Foundation called it the largest tax increase in 30 years. (Yale / Goldman Sachs / Tax Foundation)
• When one American family was told their health insurance premiums would rise 18% — to $2,600 a month — their response was to cut food spending. "Our food budget is going to go down — we're not talking about eating beans and rice, but going from a comfortable middle-class lifestyle to eating how we did when we first got out of college," one father told CBS News. (CBS News)

Sources: The Century Foundation (Dec 2025) • Urban Institute Affordability Tracker • CBS News (2026)