The price board

A reel from the page UnOffended, posted September 18, 2026. Forty-one seconds. No narration of its own. It is a clip of Fox’s Will Cain Show, with the pink UnOffended logo pasted across the bottom. Facebook’s title on it, when this was pulled, was 257,000 views and 6,600 reactions. Cain is in front of a board. The title: “Cumulative change in price Biden vs Trump 2.0.” The line under it: “Jan–July of second year in office.” The source line: “U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.” He opens with “let’s see if our feelings match reality.”

He reads it as the same stretch of each presidency. Second year. First half. January to July. Overall inflation, 12 percent for Biden and 4 percent for Trump. Groceries, up 16 percent for Biden and a little over 3 percent for Trump. Gasoline, almost 70 percent for Biden and about 12 percent for Trump. New and used cars, almost 24 percent for Biden and down under Trump. The bars that are actually printed: groceries 15.8 and 3.3, gasoline 69 and 12, rent 7.7 and 4.5, electricity 19.1 and 8.4, new and used cars 23.9 and minus 1.2. The red overall bar is marked 4.3. The blue overall number is under his hand. The sentence he says is 12.

Second year is a real date. Biden was sworn in January 20, 2021, so January through July of his second year is 2022. Trump was sworn in January 20, 2025, so January through July of his second year is 2026. The Bureau’s CPI-U, not seasonally adjusted, U.S. city average, from the January index to the July index, is the plain reading of the line on the board. Those two stretches are not the bars.

All items: January to July 2022 was 5.4 percent. January to July 2026 was 2.7 percent. The board says 12 and 4.3. Food at home, which is groceries: 8.2 percent, then 1.3 percent. The board says 15.8 and 3.3. Rent of primary residence: 3.6 and 1.4, against 7.7 and 4.5. Electricity: 10.2 and 4.0, against 19.1 and 8.4. New and used motor vehicles, the Bureau’s own combined index: 3.9 and 2.2, against 23.9 and minus 1.2. Direction on the overall index, groceries, rent, and electricity is the same story he is telling. The heights are not. Biden’s bars are about double the seven months the title names.

Gasoline is the one that reverses. January to July 2022, the gasoline index rose 36.7 percent. January to July 2026 it rose 37.6 percent. The board has Biden at 69 and Trump at 12. There is no month-to-month stretch inside 2025 and 2026 where CPI gasoline rose 12 percent and then stopped. From January 2026 the index went 254.9 to 350.8 by July, and it was already up 29 percent by March. A 69 percent gasoline move does show up in the tables if the start is pulled back into 2020, before Biden was in office, and run forward into the 2022 peak. That is not January to July of his second year. Measuring December to July instead of January to July does not save it. That window is 6.3 percent overall and 36.8 percent on gasoline for Biden, and 3.0 and 34.2 for Trump.

The feelings and the reality do not match, and the mismatch is on the board, not in the Bureau. Prices did rise faster in Biden’s second-year spring than in Trump’s, on the overall index and on groceries. The chart that says so also says the source is the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the dates are January to July, and then prints a gasoline bar that the Bureau’s gasoline index does not have. The series are all items and gasoline.