Ten weeks into the Iran war, new government data shows that inflation is now rising at the fastest rate since 2023.

But when President Trump was asked Tuesday if America's financial situation was motivating him to secure a peace deal, he dismissed the idea.

"Not even a little bit," Trump said. "I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation. I don’t think about anybody. I think about one thing: We cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. That’s all. That’s the only thing that motivates me."

Before the war, the president spent months trying to ease voter concerns about the cost of living ahead of November’s midterm elections, claiming in his Feb. 25 State of the Union address that “our policies are rapidly ending” the “high prices” Democrats “created."

Around the same time, Trump also declared that he had “won affordability.”

But critics have long countered — as Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger did in her Democratic response to the State of the Union — that “Trump’s reckless trade policies have forced American families to pay more than $1,700 each in tariff costs.” The public has largely agreed, giving Trump low economic marks in polls and electing Democrats in off-year contests in New Jersey, Virginia, Florida and elsewhere.

Now, the ripple effects of the Iran war — especially on oil and gas prices — seem to be taking a toll as well, with the annual inflation rate rising to 3.8% in April, up from 3.3% in March.

“I’m looking for anything where I can say ‘here’s some relief,’ and that’s not very easy to do in this report,” Michael Reid, chief U.S. economist at RBC Capital Markets, told the New York Times on Tuesday. “Generally, inflation is moving in the wrong direction.”

So how high is the cost of living, really?

To separate reality from spin — something that both sides engage in — Yahoo is keeping track of the key numbers that show where things actually stand, and how they've changed since Trump returned to the White House.

Inflation is the rate at which the price of goods and services increases over time. The annual inflation rate peaked at 9.1% during the pandemic, then fell to as low as 2.4% in the final months of former President Joe Biden’s term. During Trump's first year back in office, inflation generally remained under 3%. But it has spiked dramatically since the start of the Iran war on Feb. 28, driven largely by soaring energy prices.

A lot of what happens with the prices of basic goods is out of the president's control. The price of eggs, for example, skyrocketed early in Trump’s second term amid a raging bird flu outbreak; it has since returned to 2024 levels.

But after hovering around $3 since last fall, the average price of a gallon of gas has shot up more than a dollar since February — a direct result of Trump's decision to go to war against Iran. Meanwhile, overall prices have continued to rise since Trump took office, and the costs of certain things — beef and electricity in particular — have climbed at an even faster rate.

Trump said on May 11 that he supports suspending the federal gas tax “for a period of time” to help lower prices at the pump. Economists generally oppose that idea, saying it would provide minimal benefit while denying the government much-needed tax revenue.

During his second term, Trump imposed broad new import levies that propelled America’s overall average tariff rate to 18% — the highest since 1934 — while raising costs for U.S. households by $1,600 to $2,600 per year, according to independent estimates.

But Trump’s tariffs also raised hundreds of billions of dollars for the federal government — revenue that the president proposed sending back to Americans in the form of $2,000 dividend checks.

The future of Trump's tariffs is uncertain in the wake of a recent Supreme Court ruling that struck down the majority of the import taxes he's put in place. Trump has increased the rates of other tariffs in response, but revenue has still declined in recent months amid the legal back-and-forth.

The 30-year fixed mortgage rate peaked near 8% in 2023. It’s fallen since then and continued to modestly decline as the Federal Reserve has lowered the benchmark interest rate. But mortgages are still about twice as expensive (6%) as they were in 2021 (under 3%) — and the 30-year rate has risen since the start of the Iran war.

At the same time, rent has continued to rise — and after flatlining for awhile, home values seem to be ticking up too.

The COVID-19 pandemic triggered sudden, massive job losses in early 2020. But the unemployment rate went on to rapidly decline under Biden, falling below 4% in 2022.

Since the summer of 2024, joblessness has risen slightly; the most recent report, from April, puts it at 4.3%. Yet private employers added 109,000 jobs that month — the fastest monthly gain in more than a year.

Real wages — which measure the actual purchasing power of your income adjusted for inflation rather than just the dollar amount you earn — have climbed consistently under both Biden and Trump.

Yet annual inflation (3.8% in April) is now rising faster than average hourly earnings (3.6% in April), and "the share of national income that goes to workers has sunk to its lowest point on record," according to the New York Times.

Stocks had been rising since late 2022 — but after a dip last February and March, the market really took off amid the ongoing AI boom. About 60% of American adults own stocks, often through their retirement plans. The other 40% do not.

Stocks briefly plummeted after the start of the Iran war. They seem to have mostly recovered in recent weeks amid the ongoing (if fragile) ceasefire.