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Trump Promised to Lower Energy Prices for Americans. He's Done the Exact Opposite
Electricity costs increased by nearly 7% last year, more than twice the rate of overall inflation, and cost Americans $123 more on average.
Mar 25, 2026
President Donald Trump ran on promises to cut energy prices "in half" within his first year in office. But according to a report released Wednesday, he's done the exact opposite, and it's expected to get much worse as oil prices soar from his war with Iran.
Electricity prices increased more than twice as fast as overall inflation in 2025, according to a fact sheet by the Groundwork Collaborative.
According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, electricity costs increased by nearly 7% last year, compared with an overall consumer price index increase of 2.7%.
In January, a report by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), the ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee, found that Americans spent an extra $2,120 in 2025 due to inflation across the economy. Electricity cost the average family an additional $123.
Groundwork's report attributed these price increases to Trump's aggressive tariffs, which the group said have raised the costs of building and maintaining electric grids—costs that energy companies pass directly to consumers.
It also noted the Trump administration's support for the swift build-out of artificial intelligence data centers, which have dramatically increased energy demand in places where they've been constructed.
Costs for consumers connected to America's largest power grid, PJM, for example, increased by a collective $9.4 billion last year—more than a 180% increase. Meanwhile, Bloomberg found that in areas near data centers, wholesale electricity costs had jumped by as much as 267% over the past five years.
That pinch is being felt by consumers, 66% of whom said their electricity bills increased over the past year, compared with just 5% who said they decreased, according to a poll earlier this month from Data for Progress.
Groundwork found that "rising energy prices hit working families the hardest," with those earning under $50,000 spending nearly 7% of their annual income on energy, compared with just 1.2% for those earning above $150,000, according to a 2025 report from the Bank of America Institute.
Rising costs have been a growing source of anger among voters who elected Trump to bring them down, but now give him just a 29% approval rating on the economy, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released Tuesday.
It's a historic low that Trump hit for the first time this month as gas prices in the US have soared to an average of $3.98 per gallon as a result of oil price hikes caused by Trump's war with Iran, which resulted in Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz, a critical global shipping route.
Groundwork noted that the pain of the war goes far beyond the pump: The price of residential heating oil is already up 35% since the war began. Meanwhile, rising diesel costs for trucks and disruptions to the global shipment of fertilizer are expected to jack up food prices.
Short of ending the war altogether, the group pointed out that Trump has options to reduce energy costs by tapping into increasingly cheap and abundant wind and solar energy.
Instead, however, the president has delayed hundreds of solar projects by introducing new review requirements that have slowed construction and backed lawsuits to gut efficiency standards.
Earlier this month, at the Trump administration's urging, a federal judge sided with 15 red states to strike down Biden administration energy standards, which were estimated to reduce costs by more than $950 per year for families living in federally funded housing.
While Trump has taken actions aimed at curbing the global fuel shock, including tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and pausing the federal gas tax, a poll from Groundwork and Data for Progress this week found that more than half of Americans, 52%, would prefer to simply see the war end rather than these emergency measures.
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Dems Call for Prosecution of Corporations Using Trump's Illegal Iran War as Cover to Hike Prices
"As costs soar from Trump’s illegal war with Iran, any attempt by big corporations to jack up prices is unacceptable," said Rep. Jan Schakowsky.
Mar 25, 2026
Democratic lawmakers are warning corporate America to not use President Donald Trump's unconstitutional war with Iran as an excuse to jack up prices on US consumers.
US Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), and Ed Markey (D-Mass.), along with Reps. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) and Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.), sent a letter on Tuesday to the Federal Trade Commission demanding that it investigate and prosecute any unlawful price gouging by corporations during Trump's war, which has raised the cost of oil, gasoline, fertilizer, and other essential goods.
While the Democrats acknowledged that Trump's war created "broad supply chain disruptions and widespread uncertainty in the global economy," they warned that "big corporations may capitalize on this uncertainty to hike prices more than is warranted by actual input cost increases, price gouging everyday Americans while enriching executives and padding investors’ pockets."
The lawmakers accused big corporations in recent years of using assorted crises—including the global Covid-19 pandemic, the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, and Trump's massive "Liberation Day" tariffs on foreign goods—to justify hiking prices beyond what could be warranted by input increases caused by external shocks.
The lawmakers also touted the Price Gouging Prevention Act that they introduced in July 2025 that would expand the authority of the FTC and state attorneys general to stop sellers from charging a "grossly excessive price, regardless of where the price gouging occurs in a supply chain or distribution network."
The proposed bill would also require public companies to "clearly disclose costs and pricing strategies" used to justify any price increases during periods of economic disruption.
In a social media post, Schakowsky said that "as costs soar from Trump’s illegal war with Iran, any attempt by big corporations to jack up prices is unacceptable," emphasizing that "we must crack down on price gouging and protect consumers."
The call to stop price gouging comes as concerns are mounting about the major economic damage that Trump's Iran war could produce.
Larry Fink, CEO of hedge fund BlackRock, predicted during an interview with BBC on Wednesday that there would be a "stark and steep recession" throughout the world if the war dragged on and the price of oil hit $150 per barrel, which he said would raise costs on products everywhere.
"Rising energy prices are a very regressive tax," Fink said. "It affects the poor more than the wealthy, because it's a larger component of their pocketbook."
CNBC reported on Wednesday that forecasters have been increasing their odds of a recession in the US economy this year, as the Iran war puts a strain on oil prices at a time when job growth in the country has already ground to a halt.
"Moody’s Analytics’ model has raised its recession outlook for the next 12 months to 48.6%," wrote CNBC. "Goldman Sachs boosted its estimate to 30%. Wilmington Trust has the odds at 45%, while EY Parthenon has it at 40%, with the caveat that 'those odds could rapidly rise in the event of a more prolonged or severe Middle East conflict.'"
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'Apocalyptic Wasteland' for GOP as Trump's Iran War Sends Economy Spiraling: Polling Analyst
"Trump’s numbers on the economy are radioactive."
Mar 23, 2026
As President Donald Trump's unconstitutional Iran war drags on into its fourth week, fresh polling analysis shows the president and his Republican Party are politically at their weakest point ever in the eyes of the American public.
Writing in The Argument on Monday, polling analyst Lakshya Jain made the case that Trump has created an "apocalyptic wasteland" for the GOP by combining "a cost-of-living crisis with an unpopular war and tariff policies from the 1930s."
Jain noted that Trump's approval rating in The Argument's latest monthly survey had fallen to 40%, while his disapproval rating has soared to 58%, resulting in the lowest net approval for the president so far in his second term.
What should be particularly disturbing to the president, Jain said, is that disapproval of Trump is being driven by dissatisfaction with the state of the economy, the only area in which he was rated positively by voters throughout most of his first term.
"Trump’s numbers on the economy are radioactive," Jain explained. "Every major demographic group of voters disapproves of his economic stewardship, including supermajorities of young and nonwhite voters. He's even underwater on this issue with white, non-college voters, a group he won in 2024 by more than 20 percentage points."
Voters are increasingly pessimistic about the future as well, as 50% of voters believe the economy will get worse over the next year, while just 37% say it will get better.
To top it all off, Jain said, Trump's wounds on the economy are self-inflicted, including his tariff policies that have raised prices for consumer goods and his war on Iran that has sent energy prices skyrocketing.
"Trump is doing the exact opposite of what people asked for," Jain said. "Tariffs have resulted in global economic upheaval. The war in Iran—which began before the fielding of this survey—resulted in an oil shock that has sent gas prices soaring. And Trump’s actions on immigration have shrunk the labor pool, leading voters to partially blame the administration’s immigration policies for exacerbating the cost of living crisis."
Jain wasn't the only polling analyst to find Trump's public standing at a record low, as Real Clear Politics revealed on Monday that the president's job approval in its average of polls had hit a second-term low of 41.6%.
Trump's net approval also reached its lowest level ever in polling analyst Nate Silver's polling average, and Silver said that it could go even lower in the coming days as gas prices continue to rise.
"Still going to be some lagging effects as polls catch up, but gas has increased from $2.93 per gallon to $3.94 over the past month," Silver commented on Sunday, "and Americans aren't liking that."
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