Just How Bad is Current Inflation?

 Biden's Inflation Surpasses Trump's 4 Year Total in Just 13 Months!

That's a pretty bold headline that wouldn't seem true to the fact checkers, but it is true, according to our Government's reports.

I dug into the 'hot topic' inflation data put out by our Government each month, and - drum roll please - the current administration's Consumer Inflation is now up +8.46% since inauguration day, 2021! The Trump tenure saw inflation rise also, with a TOTAL gain in prices at +7.72%. That's 7.72% inflation over 4 years. Biden & Co. has seen 13 inflation reports; Feb., 2021 through Feb., 2022 thus far. Here's the Bureau of Labor Statistics snippet from their web site: https://tinyurl.com/2p8h7vyw

                                         Jan      Feb      Mar

They use an index, so it's easy to compare percentage changes across the time frames you want. Their data goes back to 1913. The yellow highlights the Trump presidency, 2017 to 2021. The red line is last month's inflation index of 283.716; that's up 8.46% over the inauguration month end (Jan/'21) index of 261.582.

It's probably not fair to blame the current White House for all the inflation. There are always factors that one staff inherits from the last. COVID-19 hurt the last year of Trump's reign, which I feel kept inflation low (+1.4%). An accomodative Federal Reserve kept interest rates low for years now, while spurring housing and asset (stocks) inflation demand to name a few. The Russian invasion has exacerbated the problem of inflation as energy prices surged the last month.

And certainly this report is just one year of data. The Federal Reserve has two mandates: to seek full employment, and to manage inflation. Their 2% target inflation will be hard to achieve with such a big hole to climb out of for the current Biden administration.

So how have past President's fared with inflation: Going back to Richard Nixon, in 1973 and forward, here are the results:
                                                   
    President                   Term                    Total Inflation
Richard Nixon/Gerry Ford1973 - 1977*             +64.3%
Jimmy Carter, Democrat   1977 - 1981               +48.7%
Ronald Reagan, Repub.     1981 - 1985               +21.3%
Ronald Reagan, Repub.     1985 - 1989               +14.8%
George Bush #41, Repub   1989 - 1993               +17.8%
Bill Clinton, Democrat       1993 - 1997               +11.6%
Bill Clinton, Democrat       1997 - 2001               +10.0%
George Bush #43, Repub    2001- 2005                +8.9%
George Bush #43, Repub    2005 - 2009               +10.7%
Barak O'Bama, Democrat   2009 - 2013               +9.1%
Barak O'Bama, Democrat   2013 - 2017                +5.5%
Donald Trump, Repub.       2017 - 2021                +7.8%
Joe Biden, Democrat           2021 - ?                      +8.46%

That's 13 elections and 10 Presidents; 6 Republican and 4 Democrats. You can see that both Nixon and Carter both had major inflation with oil prices high. It generally fell during the 1980's, reaching single digits in 2005. O'bama's second term was the best, at just +5.5%. That's history. Draw your own conclusions with my numbers presented.

Maybe it'll be useful for cocktail conversations also; just keep it respectful and civil folks.
Thanks for reading!
* I combined the Nixon/Ford presidencies as Nixon resigned in Aug/74 and Ford served out the remaining term. Nixon's was +38.8% inflation, Ford's +18.4%. Both were Republican's.