What was inflation rate when Biden became president
Executive summary
When Joe Biden was sworn in on January 20, 2021, core official measures of U.S. consumer prices were low by later pandemic standards: the Bureau of Economic Analysis’s preferred gauge, the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index, showed a 12‑month increase of about 1.5 percent in January 2021, and other inflation series (including services components of the Consumer Price Index) were similarly muted at that point in the recovery [1] [2].
1. The number to cite: PCE headline ~1.5% in January 2021
The clearest, directly cited inflation reading tied to the month when Biden took office is the 12‑month change in the PCE price index: the Dallas Fed’s January PCE update reports the headline (all‑items) PCE was up 1.5 percent year‑over‑year in January 2021, and core PCE (excluding food and energy) was also about 1.5 percent [1]. The PCE series is produced by the Bureau of Economic Analysis and is the Federal Reserve’s preferred measure for gauging inflation trends, so that 1.5 percent figure is the most defensible single number for “inflation when Biden became president” using official PCE data [1] [3].
2. Why measures differ and why it matters
Inflation isn’t a single number but a family of indexes, and different measures can give different answers for the same month: the CPI (Consumer Price Index) compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics tracks a different consumption basket and weighting method than PCE, and seasonality and component patterns (food, energy, services, used cars) can push one index above the other in any given month [4] [3]. The available reporting here includes PCE at 1.5 percent and separate signals that services inflation was modest around January 2021—CBO notes services CPI growth near 1.3 percent—so the overall picture is one of low, sub‑2 percent inflation at the outset of the Biden term according to multiple official measures [1] [2].
3. Context: a low base before a later spike
That subdued starting point is consequential because it sits before a notable acceleration: by January 2022 headline CPI had climbed sharply from 2021 levels, with major outlets reporting a 7.5 percent year‑over‑year CPI rise for January 2022, illustrating how fast headline inflation moved after the initial months of 2021 [5]. Economists and commentators have debated causes—supply constraints, rapid goods demand, stimulus effects and profit‑margin dynamics—but the underlying fact supported by the sources is that inflation in January 2021 was low (roughly 1.5 percent PCE) and later rose substantially during 2021–2022 [1] [5] [6].
4. Limits of the sources and alternative framings
The reporting provided supplies a clear PCE reading but does not include a single authoritative, directly quoted year‑over‑year CPI headline number for January 2021 in these snippets; the BLS January 2021 CPI release is cited but the exact annual CPI percentage for that month is not quoted in the supplied excerpts [4]. Given that, the most defensible public answer from these sources is the PCE 12‑month rate of 1.5 percent [1], while acknowledging that different indexes (CPI vs PCE, headline vs core) would produce slightly different figures and that later months saw much higher readings [5] [2]. Analysts using different measures might therefore answer “about 1.5% (PCE)” or “around 1–2% depending on the index,” and both are consistent with the evidence available here [1] [3].