Tomorrow, April 2, 2026, marks one year since Liberation Day — the executive order imposing reciprocal tariffs on goods imported from most U.S. trading partners. For millions of Americans with no savings in their monthly budgets, it is a price increase they did not choose and cannot absorb.
What Has Already Been Said — And What It Misses
Over the past year, much has been said, and much has been missed. The National Taxpayers Union said that the U.S. trade deficit increased, farmers faced retaliatory tariffs that gutted export markets, and domestic manufacturers dependent on imported inputs saw costs rise faster than any competitive benefit materialized. The Center for American Progress said small-business importers paid an average of $306,000 in additional tariff costs, 100,000 manufacturing jobs were lost, and the average American worker paid higher prices with no offsetting wage increase. Scripps News said that 90 to 95 percent of tariff costs were passed directly to consumers, causing prices to increase an additional 2 percent on top of existing inflation over the past year. The Supreme Court ruled in February 2026 that most emergency tariffs were unconstitutional, but said nothing about how or when funds would be returned to companies.
Women were identified early as especially exposed to tariff costs. A 2018 USITC working paper found a $2.77 billion higher tariff burden on women’s apparel than on men’s clothing in 2015. The Feminist Majority Foundation reported that single-parent households, 81 percent headed by women, spend about 40 percent of their income on goods, compared with 20 percent for top earners. The Yale Budget Lab estimates that the tariffs will push between 650,000 and 875,000 more Americans into poverty.
What those aggregate estimates do not show is who is most likely to fall below the poverty line. This analysis answers that question by identifying households for whom the annual increase in food costs from Liberation Day tariffs exceeds the gap between their Supplemental Poverty Measure resources and the Supplemental Poverty Measure threshold. Food cost increases are estimated at 12.5 percent of household resources, multiplied by a 5.6 percent tariff-driven increase in food prices. All estimates use the Supplemental Poverty Measure, population weights, and income quintiles constructed from SPM family resources. These estimates enable tracing the effects across the income distribution.
Who the Aggregate Hides
Liberation Day tariffs push 87,303 households and 214,827 people below the poverty line. Nearly all of those households and individuals are in the lowest income quintile: 86,829 households and 212,929 people (see Table 1). A much smaller number appear in the second quintile: 475 households and 1,898 people. The middle, fourth, and top quintiles may experience financial strain, but in this analysis, they do not experience income losses large enough to push them below the poverty line.
Table 1. Households and People Pushed Below the Poverty Line, by Income Quintile: 2024
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement (ASEC) 2025.
Analysis: Women’s Institute for Science, Equity and Race (WISER), April 2026
The blanks for Asian, Black, and Multiracial women do not mean these households are unaffected by tariffs. Asian (65.6%), Black (47.9%), and Multiracial women (42.8%) are not included in Table 2 because a large share of these households is already below the poverty line. The remaining low-income households in these groups have incomes above the poverty line, so the tariff increase does not push them below it. Among women who do cross the line, Hispanic women account for 4,627 households, Indigenous women for 1,173, and White women for 7,042 households. However, men account for most new household poverty crossings: 74,461 households, compared with 12,367 for women. Black men account for the largest number of households crossing the poverty line at 23,657, followed by White men at 20,984 and Hispanic men at 13,165.
Table 2. Households and People Pushed Below the Poverty Line by Race and Sex: 2024
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement (ASEC) 2025.
Analysis: Women’s Institute for Science, Equity and Race (WISER), April 2026.
Within the lowest income quintile, family structure determines who falls below the poverty line. Hispanic separated mothers account for 3,979 households (4.6% of all 86,828 crossings), and White married women without children account for 3,899 (4.5%). Hispanic women cross through separation with children —one income, no partner present, and the added cost of feeding a family. White women cross as the head of a married household whose combined income still sits at the edge of the poverty line. Never-married Black men with children account for 8,962 households (10.3%), and never-married Black men without children add another 7,365 (8.5%). Black men make up 18.8% of the households that fall below the poverty line. Hispanic married men with children account for 4,687 households (5.4%), White married men with children for 4,699 (5.4%), and Multiracial married men with children for 4,419 (5.1%). A separated mother absorbing the full cost of groceries on one income crosses the poverty line. A never-married man with no additional household income crosses. A married man with children crosses because feeding a family on a single low income leaves no savings.
Table 3. Households and People Pushed Below the Poverty Line, by Marital Status and Presence of Children: 2024
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement (ASEC) 2025. Analysis: Women’s Institute for Science, Equity and Race (WISER), April 2026.
Liberation Day was sold as a jobs policy. The data show it is also a food policy that functions as a regressive tax on households with no savings to absorb it.
Share this email or the Data Portrait with anyone who still thinks tariff impacts look the same across race, sex, and family structure.
Next week, we will add gas prices to this analysis.
Rhonda V. Sharpe
President
