特朗普在中期选举竞选期间一直在撒谎谈通胀。他虚假宣称自己已经“停止了通胀”（9月份通胀再次加速），称“价格现在正在大幅下降”（价格一直在上涨），以及价格现在比前总统乔·拜登2025年1月离任时“低了很多”（实际平均上涨了5.4%）。
The actual inflation numbers aren’t good for President Donald Trump and his party. So Trump has come up with something of a solution: just use fake inflation numbers. Trump has been lying about inflation throughout the midterm election campaign. Among other things, he has falsely declared he has “already stopped the inflation” (it accelerated again in September), that “prices are now coming way down” (they have continued rising), and that prices are now “way down” from when former president Joe Biden left office in January 2025 (they are up 5.4% on average).
但本周在一系列竞选集会演讲和对媒体的评论中，特朗普进一步升级——使用具体但虚假的数字来让通胀看起来比实际情况更好。
But in a series of rally speeches and comments to the press this week, Trump has gone a step further – deploying specific but phony numbers to make inflation seem better than it is.
在周二阿拉斯加的竞选集会演讲中，特朗普声称“过去三个月只有1.7的通胀。想想看，1.7。他（拜登）有真实的通胀；他有19%的真实通胀。”周三，新发布的消费者价格指数数据显示9月份年同比通胀率为3.7%，超过12小时后，特朗普在蒙大拿州的竞选集会演讲中重复说：“我们继承了历史上最严重的通胀，想想看，而现在，过去三个月，我们的通胀是1.7——我们已经把它降到了——他（拜登）有19%，他的真实数字是19%。”
In a Tuesday rally speech in Alaska, Trump claimed that there was just “1.7 inflation in the last three months. Think of that, 1.7. He (Biden) had real inflation; he had real inflation of 19%.”On Wednesday, more than 12 hours after newly released Consumer Price Index figures showed a 3.7% year-over-year inflation rate in September, Trump repeated in a rally speech in Montana: “We inherited the worst inflation in history, think of it, and now, the last three months, we have 1.7 – we have it down to – he (Biden) had 19%, his real number’s 19%.”
特朗普的这些数字令人困惑，难以弄清楚他到底在说什么。白宫至今未对我们的解释请求作出回应。
Trump’s figures are so bewildering that it is hard to figure out what exactly he is even talking about. The White House has so far ignored our requests for an explanation.
但我们可以设想特朗普在此可能做的三件事，而其中任何一件都无法使他的说法成立。海军联邦信用合作社首席经济学家希瑟·朗周四表示：“1.7% 的通胀数据并未得到数据支持。”多年来，特朗普一直在编造虚构的经济数据，这些数据比实际经济数据更符合他的目的。因此，他极有可能只是在就同比通胀率撒谎——这种通胀率通常是被最广泛讨论的——他极度夸大了拜登时期的最高通胀率，并显著降低了今年最新的通胀率。
But we can think of three possible things Trump could conceivably be doing here and none of them would make his claims accurate. Heather Long, chief economist for Navy Federal Credit Union, said Thursday that “the 1.7% inflation figure is not supported by the data.”For years, Trump has invented fictional economic numbers that work better for his purposes than the actual economic numbers. So it’s very possible he’s just lying about the year-over-year inflation rates that tend to be the most commonly discussed – wildly exaggerating the highest rate under Biden and significantly reducing the most recent rates this year.
在2026年最后三个月的可获取消费者物价指数（CPI）数据中，同比通胀率远高于“1.7%”：9月为3.7%，8月为3.4%，7月为3.4%。9月的个人消费支出（PCE）价格指数数据尚未公布，但该指数显示，8月的同比通胀率为3.4%，7月为3.4%，6月为3.5%。
In the last three months of 2026 for which Consumer Price Index (CPI) data is available, the year-over-year inflation rate was far higher than “1.7%”: 3.7% in September, 3.4% in August and 3.4% in July. September data isn’t yet available for the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) price index, but that index shows the year-over-year rate was 3.4% in August, 3.4% in July and 3.5% in June.
这也不是他第一次就“三个月通胀率为1.7%”这一说法发表虚假言论。5月，他错误地声称：“就在与伊朗开战之前，‘过去三个月的通胀率为1.7%’。”这也是错误的，当时白宫也无法提供任何依据。
This wouldn’t be the first time he has made a false claim about having “1.7%” inflation for three months. In May, he falsely claimed that “just before the war” with Iran, “for the last three months, inflation was at 1.7%.”That was wrong, too, and the White House could not offer any substantiation at the time.
拜登时期的峰值同比通胀率为9.1%，出现在2022年6月，而非“19%”。那么，为什么我们怀疑特朗普在声称拜登时期通胀率为“19%”时，实际上（错误地）是在指拜登时期的峰值通胀率？在2022年的一次演讲中，特朗普说拜登和民主党给国家带来了9.1%的通胀，随后很快补充道：“这不是9.1%。我认为是这个数字的两倍。”事实并非如此。虽然消费者物价指数存在缺陷和局限性，但没有任何依据支持“实际”通胀率是CPI数据两倍的说法。
Peakyear-over-year inflation under Biden was 9.1%, in June 2022, not “19%.”So why do we suspect that Trump might be (incorrectly) referring to peak Biden-era inflation when he claims Biden was at “19%”? In a 2022 speech, Trump said Biden and Democrats had given the country 9.1% inflation, then quickly added, “It’s not 9.1%. I believe it’s double that.”It’s not. The Consumer Price Index has its flaws and limitations, but there is no basis for any claim that the “real” figure is double the actual CPI figure.
累计通胀是指在特定时期内价格的总涨幅。根据CPI，过去三个月累计上涨了1.1%。这并非“1.7%”的涨幅，因此累计通胀似乎不是特朗普所指，因为当较低数字对他更有利时，他几乎从不使用较高数字……但即使他指的是累计通胀，他将特朗普与拜登进行的比较也会非常具有欺骗性。这是因为，没有合理的方式可以将特朗普任期内的三个月通胀与“19%”的拜登通胀进行比较。
Cumulative inflation is the total increase in prices over a given period. There has been a 1.1% cumulative increase over the last three months, according to the CPI. That’s not a “1.7%” increase, so cumulative inflation doesn’t seem like what Trump is referring to, since he almost never uses a higher number when a lower number would be more helpful to him……but even if he was referring to cumulative inflation, his Trump-vs.-Biden comparison would be very deceptive. That’s because there is no reasonable way to compare three-month inflation under Trump to “19%” inflation under Biden.
根据CPI，拜登担任总统四年任期内价格的总涨幅为21.4%，因此“19%”至少大致相符。但将拜登时代的月度累计通胀与特朗普时代的月度累计通胀进行对比，将完全毫无意义。特朗普本届任期至今，经过20个月，累计通胀为5.4%。
The total increase in prices over Biden’s four-year term as president was 21.4%, according to the CPI, so “19%” is at least in the ballpark. But it would be completely nonsensical to contrast Biden-era cumulative inflation over months with Trump-era cumulative inflation over months. Cumulative inflation during this Trump term to date, through 20 months, is 5.4%.
这对支持特朗普关于拜登“19%”的说法毫无帮助。但特朗普关于过去三个月“1.7%”的说法，可能是他对国家经济委员会主任凯文·哈塞特本周提出的一个合理观点的不准确表述——即“核心”PCE通胀（不包括波动较大的食品和能源价格）在6月至8月的三个月内，年化率为2%。
This wouldn’t do anything to support Trump’s “19%” figure for Biden. But it’s possible that Trump’s “1.7%” figure for the last three months is his inaccurate rendition of a fair point National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett made this week – “core” PCE inflation, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, was at an annualized rate of 2% for the three months from June through August.
这是我们对特朗普所提到的“1.7%”这一数据所能做出的最“宽容”（即最倾向于理解其说法为真实）的解读了；但即便如此，特朗普仍然在撒谎。他在任何评论中都没有明确指出自己指的是“核心通胀率”而非“总体通胀率”。在一场选举中，汽油价格既是推动整体通胀的主要因素，也是导致选民不满的重要原因，而特朗普却故意忽略这一点，这实在是一个严重的疏漏。
This is the most generous reading of Trump’s “1.7%” figure we can think of, but it would still mean Trump was not telling the truth. He didn’t say in any of these comments that he was referring to core inflation rather than overall inflation; during an election in which gas prices are a major driver in overall inflation and a major factor in voter discontent, that’s a big omission.
另外，2%显然并不等于1.7%。此外，根据市场普遍的预期，当10月底公布9月份的PCE通胀指数数据时，该指数的三个月平均值很可能会上升。周三公布9月份的CPI数据后，三个月核心CPI的年化通胀率飙升至3.4%——这一数字高于之前的2%（因为9月份的数据取代了6月份的数据，从而影响了通胀率的计算结果）。
And 2% is not “1.7%.”Also, the three-month PCE rate is widely expected to increase when the September figures for that index are released later in October. After the September CPI figures were released Wednesday, three-month core CPI jumped to an annualized rate of 3.4% – rising from the previous 2% after the September data replaced the June data in the calculation.
朗（Long）指出：“9月份的数据彻底改变了通胀走势。8月份时三个月通胀率看起来还算不错的关键原因，其实是6月和7月汽油价格有所下降。”她还表示，虽然“核心通胀率”是她对特朗普数据来源的最佳猜测，但“即便再剔除更多价格类别的数据，我也无法得出1.7%这个数字。”
Long said the September data “changed the trend sharply. A key reason that 3-month annualized trend looked decent in August was due to falling gas prices in June and July.”And she said that while a reference to core inflation is her “best guess” about where Trump got his number, “I still can’t come up with 1.7%” without stripping out yet more price categories.
特朗普在一场又一场的公开活动中声称自己是从拜登手中继承了美国历史上最严重的通胀问题。然而，正如CNN等媒体反复指出的那样，事实并非如此。
Trump has been saying at event after event that he inherited the worst inflation in US history from Biden. He didn’t, as CNN and others have repeatedly noted.
在拜登执政的最后一个月（2024年12月），同比通胀率为2.9%；而特朗普在2025年1月上任时，同比通胀率为3%。从历史标准来看，这些数字并不值得大惊小怪，远未达到任何通胀高峰；而且这些通胀率甚至低于特朗普今年年初对伊朗发动战争以来的每个月通胀率。特朗普或许可以声称拜登执政期间9.1%的同比通胀率是40多年来的最高水平，但即便如此，这个数字仍然远低于历史最高纪录（23.7%），以及吉米·卡特总统执政期间的最高纪录（14.8%）。事实上，在特朗普上任之前，通胀率就已经大幅下降了。
The year-over-year inflation rate was 2.9% in Biden’s last full month in office, December 2024, and 3% in January 2025, the month Trump took over partway through. Those numbers are unremarkable by historical standards, nowhere near any record, and lower than the rate every month since Trump launched a war with Iran early this year. Trump could fairly say the 9.1% peak year-over-year inflation under Biden was the highest in more than 40 years. But even that 9.1% rate was much lower than the all-time high, 23.7%, or the highest point of Jimmy Carter’s presidency, 14.8%, which was reached in 1980. And the rate then fell significantly before Trump returned to office.
拜登政府期间价格的累计涨幅也并非美国历史上最高，不及卡特任期内累计通胀的一半。
The cumulative increase in prices from the beginning of Biden’s administration to the end was also not the highest in US history; it was less than half of cumulative inflation during Carter’s term.