For all the power Americans give their presidents, there are significant limits to their influence over the U.S. economy. The White House has no direct control over the cost of gasoline or grocery prices, and the institution most able to influence monetary policy the Federal Reserve operates, at least in theory, independently from the executive office.
That hasnt stopped many past presidents from taking credit when the economy is strong, or absorbing the blame when Americans feel squeezed. But economists and political scientists have long argued against placing too much emphasis on one individual, when the economy is impacted by a multitude of factors across an increasingly globalized marketplace.
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Yet as cost of living concerns loom large over the upcoming midterm elections, Democrats have coalesced around a unified message: President Donald Trump bears unusual responsibility for the financial pain many Americans are experiencing. A new report from progressive advocacy group Defend America Action, shared first with Scripps News, seeks to draw a direct line between policies enacted by the Trump administration and congressional Republicans and Americans’ broader struggles with affording housing, health care, food and energy.
Trump and Republicans in Congress have spent almost two years rewarding their rich and powerful friends at the expense of everyone else, and working families across America are the ones paying the price, the report states. [T]he average American household has had to spend an estimated $4,700 more on everyday essentials under Trump, and less than two years into his second term, 79 percent of voters disapprove of the job he is doing on the cost of living.
Yet assigning responsibility for something as vast and complex as the U.S. economy is difficult. Inflation is impacted by everything from Federal Reserve policy and global energy markets to congressional spending, supply shortages and geopolitical shocks. Some of the affordability concerns highlighted in the report, particularly those pertaining to housing, stretch back years and span multiple administrations.
Jared Bernstein, who chaired the White House Council of Economic Advisers under former President Joe Biden and now consults with Defend America Action, acknowledged the limitations of ascribing presidential blame.
There’s no lever under the Resolute desk that [presidents] can move one way or the other on jobs or inflation, Bernstein told Scripps News in an interview Tuesday. Usually those dots can’t be connected.
But in Trumps case, Bernstein argued, the circumstances are different especially when it comes to the Iran war and tariffs.
We are at an extremely rare moment where the president’s fingerprints are clearly on these affordability pressures, Bernstein said.
A Democratic case against the Trump economy
The Defend America Action report lays out a wide-ranging case that Republican policies have worsened Americans cost-of-living problems, pointing to tariffs on foreign imports, rising energy costs resulting from the Iran conflict, GOP-led changes to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act and reductions in food assistance.
The energy shock brought on by the U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran and subsequent shuttering of the Strait of Hormuz offer perhaps the clearest test of the report’s central thesis.
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Before the Iran conflict began, the average cost of a gallon of gasoline in the U.S. was $2.98. Today, its $4.24, according to AAA. The spike in diesel costs is even more drastic: $3.75 per gallon on average on Feb. 28, compared to $6.35 today, a surge impacting any goods that require shipping before they are bought or sold.
We say that cars run on gas, but economies run on diesel, Bernstein noted.
Trump and many congressional Republicans have argued Americans elevated gas costs are a small price to pay to ensure global safety from a nuclear Iran. Yet the president has also, at times, acknowledged the benefits elevated oil prices bring to American energy producers.
Speaking at a political rally in Perry, Georgia on Saturday, Trump boasted about the record profits U.S. oil and gas companies are raking in.
The United States oil and gas business is making hundreds of billions of dollars, Trump said. I don’t give a damn, I’m going to say it: we’re making a freaking fortune.
Asked about Americans concerns with energy affordability, a White House official touted Trumps push to expand oil and gas production, arguing the Trump administrations policies have created an environment for sustained increase in energy supply and lower costs for American households and businesses.
Yet Americans remain unconvinced; 76% disapprove of Trumps handling of gas prices, an October poll by Navigator Research showed.
Tariffs offer another clear connection between presidential policy and consumer costs. The duties on foreign imports have been a centerpiece of Trump’s economic agenda, and, despite Trumps insistence they are paid by foreign exporters, a Tax Foundation analysis estimates they cost the average American household $920 in 2026.
On health care, officials placed more blame for rising costs on Republicans in Congress suggesting their failure to extend tax credits for Americans receiving care through Affordable Care Act exchanges and actions to impose stricter requirements for individuals receiving Medicaid or Medicare coverage have forced people to drop coverage.
Jessica Schubel, who oversaw Medicaid, Affordable Care Act and employer-sponsored health coverage issues in the Biden White House, acknowledged that rising health care costs considerably predate the current administration, but argued Republicans have nevertheless made coverage less affordable since taking back power in Washington.
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We’ve seen over the last decade or so that health care costs have continued to go up, and I don’t really think that this administration has done, or at least attempted to try, any measures that would help lower costs, she told Scripps News.
Schubel dismissed Trump-touted efforts like TrumpRX prescription discounts and Most Favored Nations deals with pharmaceutical companies as paling in comparison to the significant problems added by GOP policies.
Still, she also acknowledged the Biden administration, too, struggled to address Americans healthcare affordability concerns.
We could have done a better job of hearing the concerns and feeling, you know, the pain that Americans were feeling at the time, she said.
Longstanding problems persist and the GOP point fingers too
Americans frustrations with high prices long predate Trumps return to the White House, a point the president and other Republican leaders have repeatedly emphasized in pushing back against Democratic criticism.
Whenever I have a news conference, somebody will stand up, say, Mr. President, affordability, Trump told an Arizona crowd earlier this month. I said, Yeah, that was caused by Biden, who gave us the highest inflation in history.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) has made a more specific policy argument, pointing to the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, which Biden signed shortly after taking office in 2021, as inflationary in its impact.
It helped unleash the worst inflation crisis in 40 years, Thune said in March, suggesting those reverberations are still being felt today.
There is some economic evidence supporting the narrower GOP argument that pandemic-era fiscal policy contributed to inflation, although economists have identified numerous other causes too.
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic during the Biden administration, the U.S. experienced the sharpest rise in inflation in decades, peaking at around 9% in June 2022. Federal Reserve researchers have described the surge as stemming from severe imbalances between supply and demand brought on by the pandemic and the policy response. Other research has similarly pointed to supply-chain disruptions, commodity prices and strong demand as contributors.
One Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco analysis estimated that the unusually large U.S. fiscal response to the pandemic may have contributed roughly 3 percentage points to the divergence between U.S. inflation and inflation in other developed economies by the end of 2021. A separate analysis specifically examining the American Rescue Plan estimated it would temporarily add roughly 0.3 percentage points per year to inflation through 2022.
That history complicates efforts to assign todays affordability problems entirely to Trump. Moreover, a decline in the inflation rate also does not reverse the price increases Americans experienced during previous years.
But theres no debate that Trumps policies have also significantly contributed to inflation, and voters tend to fault the person in power for their problems.
At some point, youve got to man up and own the economy, Bernstein said of Trumps predicament.
Americans seem inclined to agree; a Reuters/Ipsos poll earlier this month showed 78% of Americans blame Trump’s policies for rising prices that are outpacing their earnings.
White House: The ‘affordability crisis’ doesn’t tell the whole story
Beyond blaming Biden, Trump and White House officials also dispute the premise that Trump’s agenda is making Americans worse off, arguing the president inherited high prices produced by the inflation surge under Biden and that evaluations of affordability should consider income growth alongside prices.
On Monday, Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, went so far as to argue on Fox Business that the idea of an affordability crisis was a myth and inconsistent with broader economic data.
In a statement to Scripps News on Tuesday, White House spokesman Matthew Middleton similarly downplayed Americans economic concerns.
President Trump has implemented an aggressive, pro-growth economic agenda that has blunted Biden’s historic 40-year high inflation crisis, driven economic growth, increased wages and created private-sector jobs in areas that had been hollowed out and shipped overseas, he said. The President has always been clear about temporary disruptions as a result of the Iran conflict, but this administration will continue to deliver economic wins for the American people over the next two years, Middleton added.
So what can Washington actually do?
The fight over which president deserves blame belies an arguably more consequential question for voters: what can Washington actually do to make life more affordable?
For Democrats, the answer begins with undoing many of the changes Trump instituted in the past two years: ending the Iran war and tariffs, reversing GOP-pushed changes to Medicaid and nutritional assistance and once again expanding ACA subsidies.
Bernstein argued the response also necessitates addressing lagging wages, perhaps by raising the federal minimum wage standard.
Schubel, meanwhile, said more action was needed to address rising costs for Americans receiving health care through their employers, with most energy in Washington instead focused on government plans.
Ohio state Rep. Karen Brownlee, a Democrat who spoke to Scripps News in connection with the report, said one of the fundamental problems facing her state is straightforward: Ohio doesn’t have enough homes. While she praised Congress for passing a bipartisan measure intended to boost housing construction, she nonetheless said its a problem that will take significantly more action at the state and federal levels to fully solve.
Regardless of which party wins control of Congress next week, however, the likelihood of major action appears slim.
Even if Democrats win majorities in both the House and Senate, Trump still maintains presidential veto power giving him the ability to negate any Democratic attempts to address affordability issues.