Prices rise across Pennsylvania despite Trump campaign promise

Energy and grocery prices continue to grow throughout Pennsylvania even after President Donald Trump assured voters he’d address affordability. 

President Donald Trump is visiting the Mount Airy Casino in northeastern Pennsylvania on Tuesday to talk to Pennsylvanians as part of a nationwide tour on affordability. However, he has failed to live up to his campaign promises for lowering costs while barnstorming across the commonwealth last year. 

This is the second high-profile visit by the Trump administration to the region in the past week. On Friday, Mehmet Oz, failed US Senate candidate and Administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, held a health care round table with US House Rep. Rob Bresnahan (R-Luzerne), who is one of the most vulnerable members of Congress heading into the 2026 midterm elections. 

“Here’s a promise I’m making to you. I will cut your energy and electricity prices in half – 50% – within 12 months of taking the oath of office. Within 12 months of taking the oath of office, I will cut your energy prices by 50% and it’s not gonna be hard,” Trump said while campaigning in Erie last year. 

He added, “we will cut energy and electricity prices in half within 12 months. We will have your energy prices, your air conditioning, heating, we will have your energy prices cut in half. It will be cut in half within a period of one year from January 20, which is the day we take office.”

Trump, who has often called affordability a “Democrat scam,” “hoax,” or “con job,” is kicking off his nationwide affordability tour in Pennsylvania at the one his lowest points during his second term in office. 

Trump’s net approval rating is 13 points under water in Pennsylvania, and a recent poll from Politico shows that nearly half of Americans, and 37% of Trump voters say that the cost of living in the US is worse than they can remember.  

If Trump wants to make good on last year’s campaign promises to bring costs down within a year of getting elected, the clock is ticking. 

Electric bills for residents are rising across the commonwealth after Trump and Republicans canceled millions of dollars in clean energy projects. The Joint Economic Committee estimates that Pennsylvanians will pay an extra $170 per month. 

If that’s not bad enough, Pennsylvanians are experiencing sticker shock every time they go to the supermarket to load up on groceries. A recent Consumer Affairs report found that grocery prices rose by 8.2% in Pennsylvania this past year, outpacing every other country in the nation. 

Pennsylvania Democratic Party Chair Eugene DePasquale is using Trump’s visit to the commonwealth as an opportunity to remind voters of Treasurer Stacy Garrity’s record. 

Earlier this year, Garrity said that the tariffs would be “very short term pain for long-term gain.”

“While Trump is desperately trying to sell his economic failures to the very people in Northeastern Pennsylvania that he’s harming, Pennsylvanians know Trump’s chaotic tariffs and harmful policies are raising the costs of everything from groceries to healthcare bills,” DePasquale said in a statement.

“Stacy Garrity and the entire Pennsylvania GOP need to answer for the damage their agenda and culture of corruption are inflicting on families across our Commonwealth.”