Inflation Continues to Rise as Trump Escalates Attacks on Workers

Oliver Wells

The consumer price index—a measurement of the cost of daily goods—rose by 0.5% in January according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the largest monthly increase in inflation since August 2023. This marks the fourth consecutive month of inflation increase and a 3% increase over the course of the last 12 months.

Among the items hardest hit by inflation has been eggs, up over 50% compared to last year. While bourgeois economists place the blame on the latest surge of avian flu, such diseases spread due to the high concentration of animals in disease-ridden conditions maintained by the agricultural monopolists to maximize their profits. Here, too, agricultural monopolists pass the burden onto consumers by charging drastically higher prices while also getting billions of dollars from the government in tax-paid subsidies. In fact, the agricultural monopolies have been culling their livestock and shuttering farms before the surge in avian flu, corresponding to the destruction of overproduced commodities to recover from the crisis across industries.

Prices of other basic necessities like gasoline, used cars and trucks, and housing have continued to rise.

Inflation passes the burden of the economic crisis onto workers by depreciating wages. The capitalists aim to realize as much profits as possible through the sale of commodities, leading to a frenzy of production where they have to make more and more goods in order to keep up the rate of profit. This results in a glut of commodities, especially of the means of production. To recover, capitalists destroy these overproduced means of production, automate, lay off workers en masse, and hike prices, among other methods. Crisis also intensifies monopolization, as the bigger companies that can weather the storm swallow the smaller ones, leading to monopoly pricing.

The Republicans are blaming the price increases on the Democrats, with Trump posting on social media, “BIDEN INFLATION UP!” The massive increase in inflation under the Biden administration now continues under Trump—it is not a matter of which mafia is in power, but the imperialist economic trends underpinning the political and social crises.

While Trump ran on an electoral platform promising workers to counter inflation, his countless executive orders have instead escalated assaults on the working class while giving it a theatrical cover. Not only has inflation continued to rise, but it will likely be further exacerbated by his numerous tariffs aimed at strengthening US domination over the Third World and countering competition from other imperialists.

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