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Are diminished energy prices to thank for reduced inflation rates in the U.S. economy?White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt credited “declining” energy prices for bringing down overall inflation in a Monday press briefing, citing the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) consumer price index report for April, released on May 13. “I would again point you to the inflation report that came out last week,” she told reporters, “showing that inflation is declining in large part because energy prices are dropping across the board in this country because of the president’s robust energy agenda that he has undertaken since January 20.”President Donald Trump similarly credited decreasing energy prices for contributing to what he claimed was “no inflation” reported in the BLS release. “No Inflation, and Prices of Gasoline, Energy, Groceries, and practically everything else, are DOWN!!!” the president posted to social media on May 13, hours after the BLS inflation report was published.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementLeavitt’s statement that inflation is declining due to lower energy prices is doubly wrong: Inflation is not declining and energy prices are not “dropping across the board.” While Trump is correct that gasoline prices are down, his other claims that there is “no inflation” and that energy prices are down are untrue.The consumer price index (CPI)—a widely used inflation metric that tracks prices for a basket of select goods and services—increased 0.2 percent in April over the previous month, and 2.3 percent since April 2024. This is not indicative of “no inflation,” as Trump claimed. The CPI has increased in both the last month and year. While the annual inflation rate—the rate of change in CPI in the last year—has decreased in three straight months, that does not mean that inflation is declining. It means that prices are still on average rising, but that price increases in recent months have become smaller.One major …
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