Colorado families had to shell out over $1,000 more on average to afford the same items in the first eight months of the Trump administration, according to an analysis of inflation data released Monday by the Democratic National Committee.

The state’s average $1,062 cost increase from February through September — amounting to about $132 per month — was the fourth-highest in the country, the DNC said, citing a report prepared by the congressional Joint Economic Committee’s minority Democrats based on methods the same committee’s Republicans used to estimate state-level costs during the Biden administration.

On average, it cost U.S. households $706 to keep up with spending over the eight-month period, the DNC report’s authors said. President Donald Trump has repeatedly insisted that prices have been falling.

“In Donald Trump’s America, Coloradans are bearing the costs of Trump’s disastrous economic agenda,” DNC Chair Ken Martin told Colorado Politics in an emailed statement.

“Monthly costs are rising, and families in Colorado are paying more because Trump and his Republican lackeys don’t have any plan to make life more affordable for working people in this country,” Martin added.

The report found that California residents have faced the highest price hikes since Trump took office, with an average $1,112 in increased costs over the eight-month period, followed by Alaska, Hawaii and Colorado. The state with the lowest average price increase was Arkansas, at $259, with Oklahoma’s and Louisiana’s totals also falling under $300.

The report didn’t account for differences in state-level policies that could have driven local price increases.

Last year, the congressional committee’s majority Republicans released a report based on the same data sources that showed Americans faced steeper price hikes during the Biden administration.

According to the Joint Economic Committee’s July 2024 inflation tracker, the average Colorado family was paying $1,329 more per month in July 2024 to have the same purchasing power as it had in January 2021, when former President Joe Biden took office — making for an average cumulative cost of $43,408 per household across 3 1/2 years.

Trump seized on the Biden era price increases on the campaign trail, hammering the incumbent for inflation rates that soared after the pandemic, reaching a 40-year high of 9.1% in June 2022 before easing to 2.9% in August 2024.

“A lot of people are very devastated by what’s happened with inflation,” Trump said at an Aug. 14, 2024, rally in Asheville, N.C. “From the day I take the oath of office, we will rapidly drive prices down and make America affordable again.”

The 2025 report released by the committee’s Democrats came days after the Trump White House said it’s “likely” that updated October Consumer Price Index figures will never be released due to the federal government shutdown, which ended on Nov. 12 after a record 43 days.

According to the most recent available federal data, September’s inflation rate in the Denver metro area was 3.1% compared to the same month a year ago, slightly higher than the national average of 3%. Key factors both in Denver and nationally, the economists said, were food, energy and housing.

Congressional Democrats compiled their report from monthly price data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, both nationally and sorted by locale, combined with state-level household consumption data prepared by the committee’s GOP members, the DNC said.

A survey of Denver-area shoppers released last week by Deloitte found that just over 8 in 10 expect to pay more for gifts this holiday season, with roughly half of those surveyed saying they’ll opt for more affordable retailers this year, instead of their preferred stores, The Associated Press reported.

A spokesman for the Colorado Republican Party didn’t respond Monday to a request for comment on the DNC’s report, but the state GOP applauded reports the same day that metro-area gas prices appear to be falling.

“As some have seen, gas prices are dropping and just in time for Thanksgiving. Even grocery prices are low compared to this time last year,” the Colorado GOP posted on X.

“Imagine how much our taxes and fees will drop with a Republican controlled majority in CO, just saying,” the state Republicans added, followed by a shrug emoji.