‘A war on the poor': How tariffs hit low-income residents hardest
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Add that to the many services for low-income families that are on the chopping block, such as SNAP, WIC, Section 8 housing vouchers, and Medicaid, said Viviana Abreu-Hernández, president of Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center, and the impact is remarkable: 'This is a war on the poor.'
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The Globe spoke to Abreu-Hernández, Adam Hersh at the Economic Policy Institute, and Ryan Young at the Competitive Enterprise Institute to learn more about the effect tariffs will have on vulnerable people.
Boston Globe: How will lower-income people be affected in the checkout line?
Viviana Abreu-Hernández:
Poor people tend to rely on imported products that are significantly cheaper. Where do they go to do their shopping? They don't go to Target, they go to the dollar store, and everything at the dollar store is made in China, it's made in Vietnam, it's made in Indonesia. … There are places in this country where the closest grocery store is a 90-mile drive. Poor people buy their groceries at the dollar store. They have pizza, they have ice cream, they have frozen food, they have canned food. … They sell everything from socks and T-shirts and bulbs to birthday things and cleaning products.
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Ryan Young:
If a good is worth less than $800, then you can ship it into the country duty-free. So companies like Temu and Shein from China, if it's just one person buying a shirt or a dress or something, that can enter the country duty-free. Early on, the Trump administration tried to do away with that, so those goods would now be tariffed. They drew it back because that is 1.4 billion packages per year that would have to be inspected. And Customs and Border Patrol simply does not have the resources to do that. Part of [Trump's so-called] Liberation Day, and this is going under the radar, is that he is once again going to try and do away with that.
BG: What's going to happen to the cost of clothing?
Adam Hersch:
A number of countries where we get a lot of consumer goods from, particularly … footwear and apparel, and lower-end consumer goods from Southeast Asia, they are getting hit with the highest tariffs. They also are some of the poorest countries: Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos are singled out for some of the highest tariff rates.
RY:
A lot of people are scrambling to do [back to school] shopping now before the tariffs fully phase in. But if you're in a paycheck-to-paycheck situation, you might not be able to get your kids' back-to-school clothes now, in April, for something that's not going to happen until August.
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BG: How about groceries?
RY:
Things like canned goods, things with a long shelf life, might be good to stock up on now if you can. A lot of fresh produce, especially stuff that's out of season in the US but might be [in season] in say, South America, because they have such a short shelf life, those prices are going to go up quickly.
BG: Housing is a huge cost in Massachusetts. Will that go up?
AH:
We import a lot of building supplies. So that's going to slow down the construction of new housing. We already have housing shortages in most places, which is why we have such high housing costs.
BG: Many people rely on their cars to get to work. Will those costs rise too?
AH:
With the tariffs on autos, we're going to see prices of new cars go up, but we're also going to see prices of used cars go up because when the new cars are expensive, few people can afford them. There's going to be a shift in demand toward used cars. During the pandemic, when there was an auto shortage, new car prices went up but the used car prices went up like crazy.
BG: What about small businesses, many of which are owned by lower-income people of color?
VAH:
The mom-and-pop shops that import goods from abroad and sell to the poorest people, they're going to either make no margins, they're not going to be able to afford the product, and the consumers are not going to be able to buy products.
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AH:
Small businesses are going to be much less able to handle financially this shock from the tariffs, so it's likely that we're going to see a lot more of what we call business deaths — small businesses going out of business or being bought up by big business, and fewer business starts from small-business entrepreneurs. So we're going to see an increasing market concentration in monopolistic firms and that's going to tend to raise prices for consumers.
BG: Will prices for domestic goods take a hit?
RY:
Domestic steel producers can raise their prices now without fear of being undercut and that's exactly what we saw the last time there were steel tariffs in Trump's first term. Even domestic goods, many of them will go up in price, even if there's no tariff on those goods … because they can get away with it.
BG: Why is it that the most vulnerable populations are affected the most by economic headwinds?
VAH:
This is affecting the people that are not invited to the decision-making table. These are the people that do not have the means to lobby the House and the Senate.
AH:
By definition, they have the least power and the least access to opportunities to insulate themselves from these problems. When we have an economic slowdown or go into recession, it's always low-income workers, people of color, women, young workers, who bear the brunt of the costs of those downturns.
This story was produced by the Globe's
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Boston Globe
an hour ago
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The 911 presidency: Trump flexes emergency powers in his second term
An analysis by The Associated Press shows that 30 of Trump's 150 executive orders have cited some kind of emergency power or authority, a rate that far outpaces his recent predecessors. The result is a redefinition of how presidents can wield power. Instead of responding to an unforeseen crisis, Trump is using emergency powers to supplant Congress' authority and advance his agenda. 'What's notable about Trump is the enormous scale and extent, which is greater than under any modern president,' said Ilya Somin, who is representing five U.S. businesses who sued the administration, claiming they were harmed by Trump's so-called 'Liberation Day' tariffs. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Because Congress has the power to set trade policy under the Constitution, the businesses convinced a federal trade court that Trump overstepped his authority by claiming an economic emergency to impose the tariffs. An appeals court has paused that ruling while the judges review it. Advertisement Growing concerns over actions The legal battle is a reminder of the potential risks of Trump's strategy. Judges traditionally have given presidents wide latitude to exercise emergency powers that were created by Congress. However, there's growing concern that Trump is pressing the limits when the U.S. is not facing the kinds of threats such actions are meant to address. Advertisement 'The temptation is clear,' said Elizabeth Goitein, senior director of the Brennan Center's Liberty and National Security Program and an expert in emergency powers. 'What's remarkable is how little abuse there was before, but we're in a different era now.' Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., who has drafted legislation that would allow Congress to reassert tariff authority, said he believed the courts would ultimately rule against Trump in his efforts to single-handedly shape trade policy. 'It's the Constitution. James Madison wrote it that way, and it was very explicit,' Bacon said of Congress' power over trade. 'And I get the emergency powers, but I think it's being abused. When you're trying to do tariff policy for 80 countries, that's policy, not emergency action.' The White House pushed back on such concerns, saying Trump is justified in aggressively using his authority. 'President Trump is rightfully enlisting his emergency powers to quickly rectify four years of failure and fix the many catastrophes he inherited from Joe Biden — wide open borders, wars in Ukraine and Gaza, radical climate regulations, historic inflation, and economic and national security threats posed by trade deficits," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said. Trump frequently sites 1977 law to justify actions Of all the emergency powers, Trump has most frequently cited the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, to justify slapping tariffs on imports. The law, enacted in 1977, was intended to limit some of the expansive authority that had been granted to the presidency decades earlier. It is only supposed to be used when the country faces 'an unusual and extraordinary threat' from abroad 'to the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States.' Advertisement In analyzing executive orders issued since 2001, the AP found that Trump has invoked the law 21 times in presidential orders and memoranda. President George W. Bush, grappling with the aftermath of the most devastating terror attack on U.S. soil, invoked the law just 14 times in his first term. Likewise, Barack Obama invoked the act only 21 times during his first term, when the U.S. economy faced the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression. 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Right now, it effectively works in the reverse, with Congress required to vote to end an emergency. 'He has proved to be so lawless and reckless in so many ways. Congress has a responsibility to make sure there's oversight and safeguards,' said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., who cosponsored an emergency powers reform bill in the previous session of Congress. He argued that, historically, leaders relying on emergency declarations has been a 'path toward autocracy and suppression.'
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'What's notable about Trump is the enormous scale and extent, which is greater than under any modern president,' said Ilya Somin, who is representing five U.S. businesses who sued the administration, claiming they were harmed by Trump's so-called 'Liberation Day' tariffs. Because Congress has the power to set trade policy under the Constitution, the businesses convinced a federal trade court that Trump overstepped his authority by claiming an economic emergency to impose the tariffs. An appeals court has paused that ruling while the judges review it. Growing concerns over actions The legal battle is a reminder of the potential risks of Trump's strategy. Judges traditionally have given presidents wide latitude to exercise emergency powers that were created by Congress. However, there's growing concern that Trump is pressing the limits when the U.S. is not facing the kinds of threats such actions are meant to address. 'The temptation is clear,' said Elizabeth Goitein, senior director of the Brennan Center's Liberty and National Security Program and an expert in emergency powers. 'What's remarkable is how little abuse there was before, but we're in a different era now.' Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., who has drafted legislation that would allow Congress to reassert tariff authority, said he believed the courts would ultimately rule against Trump in his efforts to single-handedly shape trade policy. 'It's the Constitution. James Madison wrote it that way, and it was very explicit,' Bacon said of Congress' power over trade. 'And I get the emergency powers, but I think it's being abused. When you're trying to do tariff policy for 80 countries, that's policy, not emergency action.' The White House pushed back on such concerns, saying Trump is justified in aggressively using his authority. 'President Trump is rightfully enlisting his emergency powers to quickly rectify four years of failure and fix the many catastrophes he inherited from Joe Biden — wide open borders, wars in Ukraine and Gaza, radical climate regulations, historic inflation, and economic and national security threats posed by trade deficits,' White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said. Trump frequently sites 1977 law to justify actions Of all the emergency powers, Trump has most frequently cited the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, to justify slapping tariffs on imports. The law, enacted in 1977, was intended to limit some of the expansive authority that had been granted to the presidency decades earlier. It is only supposed to be used when the country faces 'an unusual and extraordinary threat' from abroad 'to the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States.' In analyzing executive orders issued since 2001, the AP found that Trump has invoked the law 21 times in presidential orders and memoranda. President George W. Bush, grappling with the aftermath of the most devastating terror attack on U.S. soil, invoked the law just 14 times in his first term. Likewise, Barack Obama invoked the act only 21 times during his first term, when the U.S. economy faced the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression. The Trump administration has also deployed an 18th century law, the Alien Enemies Act, to justify deporting Venezuelan migrants to other countries, including El Salvador. Trump's decision to invoke the law relies on allegations that the Venezuelan government coordinates with the Tren de Aragua gang, but intelligence officials did not reach that conclusion. Congress has ceded its power to the presidency Congress has granted emergency powers to the presidency over the years, acknowledging that the executive branch can act more swiftly than lawmakers if there is a crisis. There are 150 legal powers — including waiving a wide variety of actions that Congress has broadly prohibited — that can only be accessed after declaring an emergency. In an emergency, for example, an administration can suspend environmental regulations, approve new drugs or therapeutics, take over the transportation system, or even override bans on testing biological or chemical weapons on human subjects, according to a list compiled by the Brennan Center for Justice. Democrats and Republicans have pushed the boundaries over the years. For example, in an attempt to cancel federal student loan debt, Joe Biden used a post-Sept. 11 law that empowered education secretaries to reduce or eliminate such obligations during a national emergency. The U.S. Supreme Court eventually rejected his effort, forcing Biden to find different avenues to chip away at his goals. Before that, Bush pursued warrantless domestic wiretapping and Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered the detention of Japanese-Americans on the West Coast in camps for the duration of World War II. Trump, in his first term, sparked a major fight with Capitol Hill when he issued a national emergency to compel construction of a border wall. Though Congress voted to nullify his emergency declaration, lawmakers could not muster up enough Republican support to overcome Trump's eventual veto. 'Presidents are using these emergency powers not to respond quickly to unanticipated challenges,' said John Yoo, who as a Justice Department official under George W. Bush helped expand the use of presidential authorities. 'Presidents are using it to step into a political gap because Congress chooses not to act.' Trump, Yoo said, 'has just elevated it to another level.' Trump's allies support his moves Conservative legal allies of the president also said Trump's actions are justified, and Vice President JD Vance predicted the administration would prevail in the court fight over tariff policy. 'We believe — and we're right — that we are in an emergency,' Vance said last week in an interview with Newsmax. 'You have seen foreign governments, sometimes our adversaries, threaten the American people with the loss of critical supplies,' Vance said. 'I'm not talking about toys, plastic toys. I'm talking about pharmaceutical ingredients. I'm talking about the critical pieces of the manufacturing supply chain.' Vance continued, 'These governments are threatening to cut us off from that stuff, that is by definition, a national emergency.' Republican and Democratic lawmakers have tried to rein in a president's emergency powers. Two years ago, a bipartisan group of lawmakers in the House and Senate introduced legislation that would have ended a presidentially-declared emergency after 30 days unless Congress votes to keep it in place. It failed to advance. Similar legislation hasn't been introduced since Trump's return to office. Right now, it effectively works in the reverse, with Congress required to vote to end an emergency. 'He has proved to be so lawless and reckless in so many ways. Congress has a responsibility to make sure there's oversight and safeguards,' said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., who cosponsored an emergency powers reform bill in the previous session of Congress. He argued that, historically, leaders relying on emergency declarations has been a 'path toward autocracy and suppression.'
