Life Feels More Expensive Than Ever. Today's Inflation Numbers Prove You're Not Imagining It.

Added: 2026-05-13

[00:00:00]President Trump just said he does not care how much his war with Iran is impacting your wallet.

[00:00:06]>> When you're negotiating with Iran, Mr. President, to what extent are Americans financial situations motivating you to make a deal?

[00:00:14]>> Not even a little bit. The only thing that matters when I'm talking about Iran, they can't have a nuclear weapon.

[00:00:19]I don't think about Americans financial situation. I don't think about anybody.

[00:00:24]I think about one thing. We cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. That's all.

[00:00:30]>> Here are the facts. According to today's inflation report, as of April of 2026, this war with Iran is hitting your wallet hard and on a lot of fronts. And to add insult to injury, today's report also found that whatever small wage increase you may have seen over the last year just got wiped out. And I think we need to brace ourselves for more of this financial hardship because there's no end in sight to the war. Now, before I share the troubling numbers from today's Consumer Price Index report and share what else President Trump had to say about today's inflation report, which you're going to want to hear, I want to thank my paid Fax HQ subscribers for voting overwhelmingly for this story as the bonus this week. If you want to vote on next week's bonus story, and get access to my private live event, which is happening tomorrow night, plus some other cool perks from me, make sure you follow these easy steps and you become a paid subscriber, too. It is because of my awesome paid Fax HQ subscribers that I am able to continue to bring the news to you every single day. Without them, this page would disappear. So, if you want to help support my work, and of course, only if you can, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. Okay, so first, according to today's CPI report, inflation in the month of April increased 3.8% over April of last year. 3.8%. That is the fastest increase of inflation that we have seen since May of 2023. For the record, the Federal Reserve wants that number to be 2%. 3.8% is nowhere near 2%. Of course, it is also nowhere near the 9.1% peak inflation we saw coming out of the pandemic in June of 2022. But the pandemic wasn't a choice. That inflation spike happened to the whole world. This war with Iran was Trump's choice. But he said today he made that choice for a good reason.

[00:02:16]>> Mr. President, your promise to bring inflation down is now at its highest level in three years. Are your policies not working?

[00:02:22]>> My policies are working incredibly. If you go back to just before the war for the last 3 months, inflation was at 1.7%.

[00:02:31]Now, we had a choice. Let these lunatics have a nuclear weapon. If you want to do that, then you're a stupid person. And you happen to be. I mean, I know you very well. And as soon as this war is over, which will not be long, you're going to see oil prices drop and you're going to see a stock market, which is already at the highest point in history, go through the roof. You're going to see the golden age of America, frankly. And you're seeing it now.

[00:02:58]>> Just for some clarity, I don't know where in the world the president is getting an inflation number at 1.7%.

[00:03:05]In the three months prior to the beginning of the war with Iran, which is the time frame Trump is talking about, according to Trump's own government, inflation was 2.7% in December of 2025 and 2.4% in both January and February of 2026. None of those numbers are anywhere near 1.7%.

[00:03:23]Far from it. And whether you think we are seeing the golden age of America is up to you. Now, I'm going to show you the actual numbers of how this war with Iran is impacting inflation according to today's report in a second. But before I do that, I want to put these numbers I'm about to share with you into some context because, as I mentioned, for the first time in three years, inflation is now outpacing your wage growth. Which is why you probably feel like it's hard to afford just the basics. This data is from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and it is the inflation rate versus wage growth from January of 2022 all the way till April of 2026. The blue line is inflation. The red line is wage growth.

[00:04:04]Ideally, as consumers, we want to see wages outpacing inflation, which means you would have more money in your pocket despite the inflation. Does that make sense? What we don't want to see is what happened here in 2022. You see when this blue line is way above the red line, no bueno. That's when inflation was really high and wage growth was not keeping up.

[00:04:27]But see right here in May of 2023 when it crossed over. That was the beginning of wage growth outpacing inflation. And you can see that lasted all the way until right here, April of 2026. Here, let me zoom in so you can see it better.

[00:04:43]Here it is just zoomed in from January of 2025 till April of 2026. And you can see right there, see here, April of 2026, according to today's report, inflation, that blue line is now above the wage growth red line. So now that you know the context, let's look at today's inflation numbers. As I reported what happened, we are now starting to see how this war with Iran and the closure of the straight of Hormuz is showing up in these inflation numbers.

[00:05:09]The Bureau of Labor Statistics says by far gasoline was the biggest contributor to this increasing inflation. Of course, this gasoline spike is absolutely a direct impact of the closure of the Straight of Hormuz. In April, gasoline in this country was up a whopping 28.4% compared to April of last year and up nearly 5.5% between March and April of 2026. Heating oil and diesel fuel was up a staggering 54% year-over-year and up nearly 6% month over month. But as I have also been reporting, when oil and gasoline prices go up, that seeps into the cost for other things because lots of the things we consume and buy have to be transported by a truck which runs on diesel fuel. So when diesel fuel prices go up, so do the cost for those goods like food. And we are now just starting to see those diesel prices being factored in. Overall, food was up more than 3% between April of this year and April of last year. But you can really start to see it when you look at fresh vegetables and beef. Fresh vegetables increased 11.5% between April of this year and April of last year and increased almost 4% between just March and April of 2026. Beef is up almost 15% year-over-year. One other thing that I want to point out which is also a direct result of this war with Iran. Airfares have also skyrocketed because of course jet fuel is also impacted by the closure of the strait of Hermuz. According to today's report in April airline fairs were up nearly 21% when compared to April of last year. The last index I want to make sure you know about is the cost for shelter. That two is up again another 3%.