During a speech on Monday, President Donald Trump continued to dismiss Americans’ concerns about affordability, instead claiming that the U.S. is witnessing a “golden age” of prosperity under his tenure.
In remarks before McDonald’s franchise owners gathered in Washington, D.C., Trump said that he has “normalized” inflation, and gave a glowing report of the economy under his watch. In fact, inflation is up 3 percent over the past year, a slight increase from the annual rate change seen a year prior, before Trump took office.
This is “the golden age of America,” Trump exclaimed, “because we are doing better than we’ve ever done as a country.” He falsely stated that “prices are coming down, and all of that stuff.”
Trump then encouraged franchisees to oppose raises to the minimum wage, which has remained at a federal rate of $7.25 since the mid-2000s.
“The minimum wage thing you’ll have to be talking about, you’re going to have to fight,” the president told the franchise owners.
Notably, while McDonald’s now touts an “Extra Value Meal” menu, its signature item, the Big Mac — one of Trump’s favorites — has gotten more expensive over the past year, with the price increasing by 5 percent since 2024 and by 91 percent since 2019. Despite the introduction of the value menu earlier this year, the company’s soaring prices are driving away lower-income Americans.
Prices at restaurant chains like McDonald’s are up 3.2 percent over the past year, an increase that exceeds the general inflation rate.
Trump’s assessment that the country is in a “golden age” is not a view shared by most Americans. According to an Economist/YouGov poll published on Tuesday, just 25 percent of Americans describe the economy as “excellent” or “good,” while 32 percent say it is “fair.” A plurality of respondents, 40 percent, say the economy is in “poor” shape.
Within that same poll, 56 percent of Americans say the economy is getting worse. In another question, two in five respondents say their personal finances have worsened over the past year, while only 14 percent say they’ve improved.
There are other indicators that Trump’s claims of a solid economy are deeply flawed. The first 10 months of this year saw the highest number of layoffs since the Great Recession (excluding the year of the COVID pandemic), with layoffs occurring at a rate 65 percent higher than in the same period of time last year. And a congressional report released last week finds that Americans, on average, are spending roughly $700 more on basic items per month than they were before Trump took office, despite his promises during the 2024 presidential campaign to bring costs “way down.”
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