Trump Economic Ratings Plummet To Historic Lows As US Grocery Prices Reach A Staggering Four-Year High

President Donald Trump's economic approval rating has collapsed to the lowest point of either of his terms, just as fresh government data confirm that grocery prices have surged at their fastest pace in nearly four years. For a president who built his 2024 comeback bid on the promise of cheaper everyday essentials, the combination amounts to a direct hit on the central claim of his re-election campaign.

At the height of the race for the White House, Trump told a crowd in Pittsburgh on 4 November 2024: 'A vote for Trump means your groceries will be cheaper.' Sixteen months into his second term, that pledge has met reality head-on. The US Consumer Price Index, published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on 12 May 2026, shows overall food prices rose 3.2 per cent in the twelve months to April, the steepest annual increase since May 2023. The index for food at home, the measure most directly tied to supermarket spending, jumped 0.7 per cent in April alone, its largest single-month gain since August 2022.

The Collapse In Presidential Economic Standing

The polling data are unambiguous. An Associated Press-NORC survey conducted in December 2025 found that just 31 per cent of Americans approved of Trump's handling of the economy, the lowest reading across both of his presidencies. By April 2026, a subsequent AP-NORC poll of 2,596 adults, carried out 16–20 April with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.6 percentage points, showed that figure had declined further still, to 30 per cent. Only 33 per cent of US adults approved of Trump's overall job performance in that same poll.

The trajectory is just as damning as the headline number. A Reuters/Ipsos survey conducted on 20–21 January 2025 placed Trump at a net-positive six points on economic approval (42 per cent approve, 36 per cent disapprove). By early May 2026, a comparable YouGov/Economist poll of 1,577 adults placed that figure at minus 24, a 30-point deterioration in roughly sixteen months. CNN's chief data analyst Harry Enten, aggregating multiple national polls, put Trump's current net economic approval at negative 32, a near-40-point drop from the plus-six he held at the start of his second term. 'This is the type of history that no president likes to make,' Enten said.

What Americans Are Paying At The Checkout

The numbers behind that political collapse are written on every till receipt. According to the latest Bureau of Labour Statistics CPI data released on 12 May 2026, the food-at-home index rose 2.9 per cent over the twelve months to April, its highest annual reading in four years. Beef prices surged 14.8 per cent year-on-year. Tomatoes, 90 per cent of which are imported from Mexico, rose 40 per cent year-on-year following Trump administration tariffs of approximately 17 per cent on fresh Mexican tomatoes introduced in July 2025, compounded by winter freezes that devastated Florida's crop between December 2025 and January 2026. Coffee jumped 18.5 per cent. Orange juice prices, tracked by NBC News using real checkout data from the global research firm NIQ, are up 22 per cent since Trump took office, while ground beef has risen 18 per cent over the same period.

David Ortega, a food economist at Michigan State University, told ABC News that no single cause explains the scale of the increases. 'The impact we're seeing is not just driven by one factor,' he said. 'It's really a combination.' That combination includes diesel costs that have risen approximately 60 per cent year-on-year, driven by the US conflict with Iran and the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a passage through which an estimated one-fifth of global oil supply flows, according to AAA data.

The USDA's Economic Research Service projects that overall grocery prices will rise 2.4 per cent across 2026, with beef and veal forecast to climb 10.1 per cent and fresh vegetables 4.8 per cent. Those projections were issued before April's acceleration and may be revised upward. A separate Numerator Consumer Goods Price Index, which tracks actual household purchasing data, found that everyday goods rose 0.49 per cent in April alone, the largest month-to-month increase since September 2025, and are now up 2.4 per cent from a year ago.

Tariffs: The Accelerant

Independent economists are pointing squarely at the administration's tariff regime as a structural driver of elevated prices. The non-partisan Tax Foundation estimated that Trump's tariffs cost the average American household approximately £800 ($1,000) in 2025 alone. The Budget Lab at Yale projected that tariff-induced price increases would raise food costs by 3.4 per cent in the short term. Research published by Harvard Business School in October 2025 confirmed that the costs of everyday household items rose in the wake of the administration's new tariff schedule.

The White House has maintained throughout that tariff costs are borne by foreign exporters. 'The Administration has consistently maintained that the cost of tariffs will be borne by foreign exporters who rely on access to the American economy, the world's biggest and best consumer market,' White House spokesperson Kush Desai told CNBC in a statement in July 2025. However, the empirical record of Trump's own first term is instructive: after the 2018 tariffs on imported washing machines, domestic manufacturers including Whirlpool and GE raised their own prices on goods not subject to the tariffs at all.

A Political Reckoning Before the Midterms

The convergence of soaring food costs and cratering approval numbers arrives at a consequential moment. The 2026 midterm elections are approaching, and the economy, historically Trump's strongest suit with voters, has become his most exposed vulnerability.

An NPR/PBS News/Marist poll found that 70 per cent of Americans say things have become too unaffordable, with 45 per cent of respondents identifying prices as their single greatest economic concern, well ahead of housing (18 per cent), tariffs (15 per cent), and job security (10 per cent). The CNN polling aggregate found that 77 per cent of Americans, including a majority of Republicans, believe Trump's policies have increased the cost of living in their communities.

The president who promised to bring down the cost of a weekly shop has instead presided over the fastest grocery price acceleration in four years, and the polls reflect it.