Federal Reserve: Without Tariffs, Inflation Would Have Dropped to Pre-Pandemic Levels During 2025

[CousinIT]

https://reason.com/2026/04/13/federal-reserve-without-tariffs-inflation-would-have-dropped-to-pre-pandemic-levels-during-2025/

New study finds that tariffs were responsible for the "entirety of the excess inflation in the core goods category."

Tariffs implemented last year by President Donald Trump's administration are entirely to blame for the recent surge in prices for consumer and household goods.

Those tariffs have raised core goods prices by 3.1 percent, according to a new study by a trio of economists at the Federal Reserve. Those higher consumer prices were the result of retailers passing the cost of tariffs along the supply chain.

As of February 2026, the tariffs "can explain the entirety of the excess inflation in the core goods category since January 2025," the economists concluded. "Our estimates indicate that tariff effects on prices gradually build over time, with cumulative effects seven months after implementation consistent with our theoretical measures of full dollar-for-dollar pass-through."

The study used the personal consumption expenditures price index (PCE), which is published quarterly by the federal Bureau of Economic Analysis and differs in some small ways from the monthly consumer price index published by the Department of Labor. The most recent PCE index, published in February, showed that prices have increased by 2.8 percent over the previous year.

Without the price increases caused by the tariffs, price increases for household and consumer goods would have fallen below pre-pandemic trendlines, the Federal Reserve study found: