By Annette Quijano

For many families, the holiday season does not arrive with ease, comfort, or even joy. Instead it arrives with a sense of stress that is all too familiar to the people of my district and the people of New Jersey.

I hear from families who tell me they are choosing which bills to pay late, seniors who are stretching fixed incomes to cover the groceries that not long ago fit into their budgets with ease, and workers who are doing everything asked of them only to discover that it’s not enough to get by.

Every year, throughout the year, I host sandwich drives and holiday toy drives, and every year I hope more than anything that the need will shrink, but what I am seeing lately has been the opposite.

These are hardworking people—parents who want to provide for their children—and yet their ability to do that is being strained in ways that are both heartbreaking, and frankly just unacceptable to me.

Families deserve to understand why the cost of living keeps rising and who is responsible for those increases. That is exactly why I’ve introduced new legislation, A5922, also known as the “Tariff Transparency Act.”

The bill would require retailers to inform consumers how much of a product’s price is the result of federal tariffs imposed by the Trump administration.

This year, almost everything, from the gifts you will buy to the food you will eat, will seem more expensive, and it’s not because we all forgot how to shop smart. It’s because the federal government keeps imposing these hidden taxes on working families.

That’s right, the buzzword you thought only applied to cargo ships in foreign countries has found a way to make your holidays even more stressful.

The truth is, our partners in Washington, if we can even still call them that, are smart. They know that telling a working-class family “Your taxes are going up” is a losing game. So, rather than be transparent, they quietly fold this tax into the price tag. They act as if consumers, like you and I, will either not notice, or will not care.

Well we do notice, we absolutely care, and it’s time we call it like it is.

These tariffs, which were imposed and expanded under President Trump, raise the cost of groceries, clothing, home goods, and many of the everyday necessities that families rely on.

Simply put, I will not sit idly by while hardworking New Jersey families get blindsided by these price hikes that don’t show up anywhere except the final total on the receipt.

Under my bill, consumers would be clearly informed—whether on the price tag, on the products page, on the receipt, or in a manner deemed appropriate by the Director of the Division of Consumer Affairs (DCA)—how much of the retail price stems from tariffs imposed at the federal level.

The measure would also call for retailers and wholesalers to keep documentation supporting these calculations and subjects all establishments to periodic compliance audits by the DCA.

Retail establishments with under $500,000 in annual revenue would be exempt from this Act, as would for products where the tariff impact is under 2% of the retail price. We’d also make sure that full compliance would be phased in over a year, starting with voluntary participation before becoming required for larger retailers.

The holiday season should be a time of joy, but this year everything from Christmas tree decorations to apparel are being impacted by these tariffs.

In fact, LendingTree.com estimates that tariffs would have added $40.6 billion burden to winter holiday gift shopping in 2024. That works out to an extra $132 per shopper!

So, as so many parents work to stretch every dollar, I want them to know that someone is fighting for them. I want them to know that their struggles are seen and heard and that the urgency they feel transcends the store aisles.

Transparency will not solve every problem, but it is a necessary first step toward restoring fairness and dignity to household budgets. New Jersey families deserve nothing less.

Annette Quijano, a Democrat, is an Assemblywoman, representing Union County in the 20th Legislative District.