A team at the New York Fed led by Mary Amiti, Sebastian Heise and David Weinstein analyzed 67 categories of consumer goods. They estimate that, by February, those items cost 2.9 percentage points more because of the tariff regime, compared with an alternative world without the levies.
In that no-tariff scenario, the researchers say prices for the products they tracked would have edged down by nearly 1%. They also find that about 26% of the tariff hikes enacted last year showed up in higher prices paid by shoppers. The team did not specify which 67 types of goods were in the dataset.
The paper finds that when the average tariff goes up by 1 percentage point, consumer prices are roughly 0.25% higher a year later. The report attributes around two-thirds of the overall price impact to the tariffs themselves.
The rest stems from spillover effects, including costs borne by U.S. companies that depend on imported components and materials. Annual price growth across the sampled goods topped out at the start of 2026, and the study expects households will continue to face above-normal prices into 2027 because of the policy.
Measuring who actually pays a tariff is harder than the debate suggests. Market Briefs covers trade economics free every weekday.
Trump has argued that businesses could absorb tariff costs instead of passing them on to consumers. The New York Fed's findings point to meaningful passthrough, even if not all of it reaches the checkout line.
In February, the Supreme Court struck down many of Trump's tariffs, which set off retailer refunds worth billions of dollars. The White House says it still plans to pursue levies via other avenues, and products imported from many countries frequently face tariffs of about 10% today - often lower than the earlier round. CNBC asked the White House for comment on the report, but it did not provide one right away. Tariffs remain a central plank of Trump's latest campaign and his second term agenda.
If you felt like prices on ordinary goods never quite eased, this helps explain why. Tariffs lifted costs directly and indirectly, and the New York Fed expects the effects to linger into 2027. For anyone budgeting at home, the takeaway is simple: the sticker price on a lot of everyday stuff likely reflects trade policy as much as supply and demand.
Central bank research tends to settle these arguments eventually. Join Market Briefs free and read the findings.
