Trump Tariffs Full Pass-Through: Fed Confirms Average Household Is $1,000 Poorer in 2026

# Trump Tariffs Full Pass-Through: Fed Confirms Average Household Is $1,000 Poorer in 2026

> **Quick answer:** Federal Reserve Board researchers confirmed in April 2026 that Trump tariffs have achieved near-full dollar-for-dollar pass-through to consumers, adding 0.8 percentage points to core PCE inflation — meaning the 3.2% inflation reading in March would have been just 2.3% without tariffs. The Tax Foundation estimates average households absorbed $1,000 in tariff costs in 2025. Consumer sentiment has fallen to a 74-year record low, the worst since the University of Michigan survey began in 1952.

The debate over whether American companies absorb tariff costs or pass them to consumers is now settled. Trump tariffs cost consumers real money in 2026, and Federal Reserve researchers have quantified exactly how much — with a level of methodological rigor that makes the finding difficult to dispute.

The answer: effectively 100 percent of tariff costs move through the supply chain and land on consumer prices, and the cumulative damage to household purchasing power is measurable in the hundreds or thousands of dollars per year.

## What the Fed Researchers Actually Found

The key paper came from Robert Minton, Madeleine Ray, and Mariano Somale at the Federal Reserve Board, published in April 2026 as part of FEDS Notes: "Detecting Tariff Effects on Consumer Prices in Real Time — Part II."