The Promise That Keeps Haunting Us

Here's the problem with promising voters that prices will come back down: they almost never do. At least not in a functioning economy. But that didn't stop President Donald Trump from making exactly that promise on the campaign trail, and now economist Justin Wolfers is calling it out as Trump's "original sin" on the economy.

Speaking on MSNBC's "Velshi" on Sunday, Wolfers explained why so many Americans are still waiting for relief that probably isn't coming. "The President promised prices would go back down," he said, and that's created expectations that run counter to basic economic reality.

What normally happens after a price spike isn't deflation—it's wage growth that eventually catches up. Except this time, wages aren't keeping pace, which is why we're stuck in what Wolfers calls an "affordability crisis."

"It was an irresponsible claim at the time, and hoping they'd live up to it would be dreadfully painful," Wolfers said about Trump's campaign rhetoric.

Supply Shocks Make Everything Worse

The current situation is particularly tricky because we're dealing with supply-side pressure. Wolfers pointed to tariffs and reduced availability of immigrant labor as key drivers pushing business costs higher. When companies face these kinds of supply shocks, they don't have extra cash sitting around to boost worker pay. "There's no extra money to pay for a pay rise," he explained.

Mark Zandi, Chief Economist at Moody's Analytics, recently echoed similar concerns. He's warning about a "serious affordability crisis" developing in the U.S. economy, and he's pointing directly at Trump's tariffs and immigration restrictions for "juicing" inflation higher.

Zandi's outlook isn't encouraging: everything points to "even higher inflation dead-ahead," potentially well above the Federal Reserve's 2% target. That would make further rate cuts basically impossible.

Victory Laps on Egg Prices

Despite these broader warning signs, the Trump administration is claiming wins where it can find them. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said last week that egg prices are "down 86 percent" over the past 10 months, framing it as evidence that Trump is "resolutely focused" on affordability.

She even shared a colorful anecdote about the President telling her: "Brooke, we're not going to have plastic eggs at the Easter Egg Roll at the White House. Go get the price of eggs down."

One commodity success story doesn't change the bigger picture, though. Until wage growth catches up or those supply-side pressures ease, Americans are likely to keep feeling the squeeze—no matter what was promised on the campaign trail.