3 Bogus Economic Stats in Trump’s State of the Union

President Donald Trump made many outlandish economic claims in this year’s State of the Union address. Here are three of the most wildly wrong:

Inflation was pretty bad under President Joe Biden. Rampant deficit spending coupled with the Federal Reserve’s “accomodative” monetary policy drove it to 8 percent. That’s a dizzying figure, but it’s not even close to the highest in American history. Even ignoring the double-digit inflation during and immediately following World War II, inflation was higher than this for three straight years, from 1979–1981, and also in 1974 and 1975, according consumer price index data compiled by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. 

Trump keeps making outlandish claims about the foreign direct investment supposedly fostered by the “deals” he’s brokered with his illegally imposed tariffs. Reason has debunked these claims here and here. But even the White House isn’t claiming the level of investment that Trump claimed tonight: Its website reports $9.7 trillion in total U.S. and foreign investments. 

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported annual inflation of 2.7 percent for 2025. Considering the Federal Reserve’s target is 2 percent, 2.7 percent is not “no inflation”; it’s elevated inflation. The Fed’s preferred inflation measure, the personal consumption expenditures index, was even higher: 2.9 percent.

“Tremendous growth” does not lend itself to quantitative evaluation but, to put things into perspective, the Bureau of Economic Analysis estimates that the economy grew by 2.2 percent in 2025. It grew by 2.8 percent in 2024.