According to the Treasury Department, tariffs brought in $194.9 billion in the twelve months that ended in September 2025. The year before it was $77.0 billion: two and a half times as much in a single year. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York found that foreign exporters barely cut their prices, and that nearly 90% of the burden landed on American firms and consumers. Firms and consumers are two very different wallets, and nothing on a receipt says tariff.
The New York Fed reports that tariffs act like a tax paid by the American importer of record, not by the foreign factory. For every 10% of tariff in the first eight months of 2025, foreign export prices fell by only 0.6 of a percent. In the New York Fed’s split, importers carried 94% from January through August of 2025 and 86% by November.
It is diluted: the trip from the border to the shelf is about half of what is paid for goods. On a $100 item, $50 is the border price. A 10% jump at the border makes it $55 and the shelf price $105: 10% at the border, 5% for the shopper. It is also delayed: half of the direct effect on imported goods reaches the shelf in 3 months and all of it within 6, and on goods made here the full effect takes about a year.
The average tariff was 2.6% at the start of 2025 and 13% by December. The rate actually collected, which is our own calculation (monthly Treasury customs collections divided by Census import values), was about 2.5% in December 2024, about 13% at the October 2025 peak and about 7% in May 2026.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics price index for all imports excluding fuel stood at 129.8 in December 2024 and 129.8 in September 2025. It leaves the tariff out on purpose, so if foreign sellers had absorbed it, the line would have fallen. It stayed flat.
Core goods prices were down 0.5% from a year earlier in December 2024 and up 1.4% a year later. The New York Fed says tariffs added 2.9 points to goods inflation by February 2026. The Federal Reserve Board found tariffs had raised core goods prices by 3.1% by February 2026. In the twelve months to September 2026, toys rose 6.6%, computers 9.7%, furniture fell 2.4%, and the index cannot say which part is the tariff.
How much of the tariff reaches the price? The New York Fed: about 0.25% per point of average tariff within 12 months, roughly a quarter. A working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research: 20% at retail. The Federal Reserve Board, on goods from China: at least 30%. They are not three slices of one pie. Different baskets, different months, different questions.
Where the money went: on February 20, 2026, the Supreme Court ruled that the emergency powers law behind many of the tariffs does not authorize them. The Congressional Budget Office counts $166 billion collected under that law, most of it being refunded. In June 2026, net tariff revenue at the Treasury was negative: minus $25.6 billion in a single month. U.S. Customs and Border Protection says it can only refund those duties to the importer of record or the notify party. Target reported $994 million in refunds, which added 3.7 percentage points to its gross margin for the quarter; Walmart’s gross profit rate rose 96 basis points, which its own release attributes primarily to the refunds; Dick’s Sporting Goods reported $59.0 million. None of it is a scheme: the refund returns a cost these companies really paid. Walmart and Target both say they are putting refunds back into lower prices, a statement no filing lets anyone check against the shelf.
The three variables a household can read: the share of the price that is the trip after the border. With a 10% rise at the border, the shelf price rises 8.0% if that trip is 20% of the price, 5.0% at 50% (the New York Fed’s example) and 3.0% at 70%. The tariff level: about $26 per $1,000 spent on goods for 10 points of average tariff, roughly $34 at the 13 points of late 2025. And time: the New York Fed projects the effect on goods prices easing from about 3% in February to about 2% by August. The honest limit: a refund cannot be claimed by a shopper, and about a third of the effect reaches households through goods made in the United States.
Why it still matters: in the twelve months that tariffs were coming down, the price of imported goods outside fuel went up 6.0%, the fastest rise since 2022. The tariff on those goods was falling. Their price was not. This newsletter does not say why; the data we read does not decompose it.
Two people paid, at two different moments, and only one of them was on the paperwork. The tariff was never printed on the receipt, and the refund was never going to be either.
Watch: What the Hell Is Really Happening to Prices After Tariffs, https://youtu.be/e9iF10y296s
No advice here. No tips, no recommendations. Just the numbers, and where each one is published. The full source list is in the video description.
— The Cost of Living