The trade war has potentially far-reaching consequences for international relations and the global economy. But what about your household? What will it cost you?
As The New York Times reports, for the more than $80 billion in tariffs that the United States has already placed on thousands of products made in China, the short answer is about $60 a year, per household.
For context, that’s about one-tenth of 1% of the average household income.
This does not include the potential impact of taxes on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports that the Trump administration enumerated this week; the earliest those could go into effect would be September. Including those tariffs would bring the total annual costs for the average American family to $127.
The household impact numbers are based on analysis of government data by Kirill Borusyak, a postdoctoral associate at Princeton University, and Xavier Jaravel, an economics professor at the London School of Economics. They should be thought of as rough estimates, as they don’t account for the full range of ways businesses and consumers will react.
But the data gives a sense of how the tariffs are likely to affect the typical household budget and increase consumer prices. The magnitude is small for now, but prices could rise substantially if a tit-for-tat escalation drives the total of affected goods toward or beyond $1 trillion.
