Tariffs Hit Back-to-School Shoppers

National Taxpayers Union's Brian Riley breaks down how tariffs are adding $147 to the average family's back-to-school shopping list, with costs ranging from a few cents on notebooks to $100 on a new bicycle. Riley explains that the added costs come from tariffs on imported goods like clothing, footwear, calculators and backpacks, and that state sales tax holidays don't offset federal tariff costs since they're separate forms of taxation. He notes the policy disproportionately affects lower-income households and that nonprofits and school districts — which don't pay sales tax but still absorb higher costs on bulk purchases like canned food — bear the impact as well. Riley estimates the overall cost of tariffs at roughly $200 billion a year, or about $1,500 per household, and argues that while reshoring manufacturing is a legitimate goal, tariffs on raw materials like steel and aluminum make U.S. manufacturing more expensive rather than less.