Don’t believe Trump’s claims about making life more affordable | Steven Greenhouse

In recent months, Donald Trump has made some absurd comments about inflation, saying the affordability crisis is “a hoax” and “I won affordability,” a clumsy, questionable claim meaning that he somehow conquered inflation. Trump recognizes that affordability is a huge issue, and with his war against Iran proving to be a big political loser, he seems eager to score some political points by telling Americans that he’s moving boldly to cut living costs. But as with everything Trump says, people shouldn’t be tricked by his slick salesmanship.

Trump has boasted about cutting prescription drug prices, housing prices, food prices and gasoline prices. All that might be great public relations for Trump, but it’s grossly exaggerated nonsense. Trump’s much-ballyhooed efforts to fight inflation are essentially diddlysquat. Many of them are mini efforts that have had mini effects in reducing prices. They’re as meaningful as a degree from Trump University.

Trump often boasts that his egomaniacally named TrumpRX program will be a boon for Americans by supposedly bringing “the world’s lowest prices” for prescription drugs. But as of this weekend, TrumpRX covered only 61 of the country’s several thousand prescription medications – a drop in the ocean of high-priced prescription drugs. What’s more, Trump is flat-out wrong when he says TrumpRX is offering the world’s lowest drug prices. TrumpRX sells a medium dose of Wegovy, a weight-loss drug, for $349, while that same dose sells for $163 in Japan and $198 in Germany. According to a New York Times analysis, Xigduo, a drug for diabetes, is $116 cheaper in Germany than on TrumpRX; Xeljanz, a drug for auto-immune diseases, is $1,653 cheaper there.

The TrumpRX website is one big, glossy, government-paid advertisement for Trump and his ego, but for the vast majority of Americans, it will do nothing to cut their drug prices. TrumpRX is designed to help uninsured, cash-paying patients, but not the 85% of Americans who have prescription drug insurance coverage.

With many Americans complaining about housing costs, Trump has trumpeted that he’s helping hold down rents with his executive order that prohibits Wall Street firms from buying single-family homes. But with Wall Street firms and other institutional investors owning only about 2% of the country’s single-family homes, housing experts say this effort will do little or nothing to reduce housing prices or rents. The overriding cause for high housing prices and rents isn’t Wall Street, but a severe shortage of housing units. Zillow says there is a shortage of 4.7m housing units nationwide. Making matters worse, Trump’s war in Iran has caused mortgage interest rates to jump sharply.

It’s important to remember that for a smooth-talking demagogue like Trump, the goal isn’t so much to accomplish good things, but to make Americans believe he is accomplishing good things.

From the moment Trump returned to the White House, he boasted he was cutting gasoline prices, largely by tossing out environmental protections and letting fossil fuel companies “drill, baby, drill”. But ever since Trump began bombing Iran, gas prices have soared, with a gallon of regular jumping to $4.10 on average as of Saturday, a 37% jump from $2.98 before the war started.

Candidate Trump promised to reduce food prices on day one, but, sorry folks, food prices have risen since Trump’s inauguration, although that hasn’t stopped him from bragging that he reduced food prices. He often boasts that eggs prices are way down (thanks not to Trump, but to a sharp decrease in avian flu). But food prices overall have risen, climbing 3.1% between February 2025 and February 2026, with coffee prices jumping by 18.4%, beef by 14.4% and fresh vegetables by 5.4%. Trump’s beloved tariffs have hiked prices on many food items and other things, indicating that he cares more about raising tariffs than about reducing prices.

Even as Trump boasts that he “won affordability”, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development forecasts that inflation will climb above 4% in the US this year, largely because of Trump’s war against Iran, well above the 3% rate when Biden left office. Trump has absurdly claimed he “inherited the worst inflation” in history from Biden.

Part of Trump’s boast about affordability is that he has put more money in people’s pockets. He brags about no taxes on overtime or Social Security. But those boasts are false. In his speech last month in Hebron, Kentucky, Trump said: “Every extra hour you work, your overtime pay is now 100% tax-free. You have no tax.”

The truth is that every overtime hour people work, two-thirds of their pay is subject to federal income tax, while 100% is subject to federal social security and Medicare payroll taxes. Only the “half” in time-and-a-half overtime pay is free from federal income tax. If your base pay is $20 an hour and you receive $30 for each overtime hour, you must still pay income tax on your $20 an hour, but not on the $10 overtime premium. “No tax on overtime” is a slick, but false slogan.

The White House says there is no tax on social security, but that, too, is bunk. The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center says that more than half of seniors receiving social security will still pay some income tax on their benefits. The center wrote that under Trump’s budget bill, “most would see their income taxes on Social Security benefits reduced, not eliminated.” While Trump insists there’s no tax on social security, his own Social Security Administration says that more than 10% of Americans will continue to pay taxes on their benefits – an estimate the Tax Policy Center says is far too low.

To give credit where it’s due, Trump pushed for “no tax on tips”, and under last year’s new tax law, tips generally aren’t taxed. But that provision is very limited in that it benefits only the 1.7% of US workers employed in tipped jobs, meaning that more than 98% of workers don’t benefit.

Trump also crows that Trump Accounts will be great for struggling families. In that program, the federal government makes a one-time, seed deposit of $1,000 when a child is born. The child’s family can deposit up to $5,000 per year into this tax-deferred account up to age 18. This is good news for wealthy families that can easily put $5,000 a year into these baby savings accounts, but for the millions of families that live paycheck to paycheck and can’t effort to make deposits beyond that initial $1,000, Trump Accounts will mean very little. While providing meager help for struggling families, this program will, just like 401ks and the mortgage interest deduction, disproportionately help wealthy Americans.

Let’s not forget that Trump has taken specific actions that have made life less affordable for millions of Americans. He pressed Congress not to extend Obamacare subsidies, and as a result average healthcare premiums have soared by more than 20% for over 20 million Americans. As part of his new budget, Trump is pushing to end subsidies that help 6m low-income households pay their heating and cooling bills. While tens of millions of Americans struggle, Trump often seems focused on building his $400m gilded ballroom and more recently a glitzy sky-high presidential library/monument to himself in Miami.

All these Trumpian efforts to supposedly cut prices and increase affordability sound nice. They have great PR value and aim to maximize political advantage to Trump, but most of these programs will do far less than advertised to help America’s working families. Many will have an itty-bitty effect, doing little or nothing for average families. Americans shouldn’t be fooled by Trump’s salesmanship.

• Steven Greenhouse is a journalist and author, focusing on labour and the workplace, as well as economic and legal issues