Donald Trump’s favorite inflation gauge? Bacon.

• Donald Trump pointed to the rising price of bacon as evidence of inflation.
• “Bacon is up five times… food is up terrible, even worse than energy,” he told NBC Sunday.
• Prices for chopped bacon have actually increased only 12% since Trump left office.

Inflation hurts the poor more than the rich — but don’t tell that to billionaire fast food lover Donald Trump, who on Sunday drew attention to the rising price of one item in particular.

In a wide-ranging interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press,” the former president pointed to the rising cost of bacon as evidence that the U.S. economy is facing inflationary pressures at the moment.

“Things are not going very well right now for the consumer,” Trump told moderator Kristen Welker as part of an 80-minute pre-recorded interview.

He said, “Bacon is up five times… food is up terrible, even worse than energy.”

Trump – not for the first time – is getting the facts wrong here.

He is right that food prices are now rising faster than energy costs, but the statement that bacon has become five times more expensive is wildly wrong.

According to Bureau of Labor Statistics data, the average price of a pound of sliced ​​bacon has increased by nearly 12% since Trump left office in January 2021 — but has actually declined over the last year, with inflation now under the Federal Reserve. The target is decreasing towards 2%.

So, Joe Biden’s presidency hasn’t been as bad for lovers of salt-cured pork as his predecessor might have thought.

It may seem strange that Trump, who remains the favorite to become the Republican Party’s presidential nominee, would mark the price of bacon as a potential inflation gauge.

But food prices are often of interest to economists.

For the past 37 years, The Economist’s Big Mac Index has tracked the price of the flagship McDonald’s hamburger as an informal way of measuring the purchasing power of different currencies.

Meanwhile, from May 2021 Bloomberg has published its Pret Index, which uses footfall at Pret à Mangers in the London and New York financial districts to assess office footfall rates for bankers, asset managers and lawyers.

Perhaps the Donald Trump Bacon Index will one day join those two in the pantheon of great food-based economic metrics.

Source: www.businessinsider.com