{"id":95390,"date":"2025-09-30T20:04:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T20:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/95390\/"},"modified":"2025-09-30T20:04:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T20:04:08","slug":"as-tariffs-hit-americans-grapple-with-rising-bills-and-multiple-jobs-inflation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/95390\/","title":{"rendered":"As tariffs hit, Americans grapple with rising bills and multiple jobs | Inflation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dallas, United States \u2013<\/strong>\u00a0Melinda, a teacher at a Dallas high school, has an easy way to predict if her students will have a good day.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf they show up and they\u2019ve had breakfast, it\u2019s a really good day,\u201d said Melinda, who has worked as a Texas teacher for 13 years. Her students showing up fed, she added, \u201cis rarer than you think\u201d.<\/p>\n

Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list<\/p>\n

To help, Melinda spent about $45 per week on breakfast items and snacks during the last school year. While such practices are common among US teachers, she asked Al Jazeera not to use her real name. However, rising prices for groceries and school supplies may force her to stop, especially since Texas teachers\u2019 salaries are not keeping up with inflation.<\/p>\n

When Melinda went to the store in late August, the same items now cost her $56 per week. That means, over the course of a school year, she could spend $400 more for the food her students rely on.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m trying to work out how to keep that in my budget, because prices are just crazy, and I like to keep it to where it\u2019s [available to all students] so people aren\u2019t singled out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Melinda\u2019s worries are just one example of a broader problem brewing in the United States. After the administration of US President Donald Trump issued an onslaught of tariffs on countries around the world, Americans are seeing price increases creep into their lives. Rising costs of groceries, bills, rent and essential baby items are creating new burdens for people across the country, millions of whom work more than one job.<\/p>\n

Pinching pennies<\/p>\n

Tariffs are the rate that importers must pay to import their goods, and some economists have pointed out that it will take time for US consumers to bear the full brunt of Trump\u2019s tariffs.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s no small comfort for Katie Ventre, a 37-year-old Long Island resident who oversees payroll, finances and HR for her father-in-law\u2019s auto repair company. Her husband is the CEO of the company, and together, they\u2019re trying to start a car rental service. Increases in grocery prices \u2013 especially the cost of fruit, eggs and milk \u2013 have been frustrating for their family, Ventre told Al Jazeera, but the auto business has been hit even harder.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just had the worst two months in the last eight years,\u201d she said in early September. To pinch pennies, she said, customers are reducing the amount they spend, or delaying repairs altogether. Meanwhile, the Ventres raised their prices in an attempt to offset the cost of imported goods.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not just us,\u201d Ventre added. \u201cWe have a towing company we work with that\u2019s seeing a slowdown \u2026 and all our vendors are addressing [the tariffs] in their own way. Some are raising prices, some are trying to wait and see if things get better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other companies aren\u2019t waiting. The think tank Groundwork Collaborative has been tracking earnings calls and the remarks that C-suite executives have made about price increases, and in a new report, they detail how some companies are using the tariffs as cover to hike prices.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe indirect effect of tariffs is that it gives steel producers and the mills and other fabricators \u2026 great cover for increased pricing in some cases,\u201d Aaron Jagdfeld, CEO of the power generation products company Generac Power Systems, said on an earnings call this summer.<\/p>\n

Among those raising prices are the security and digital products company Fortune Brands Innovations Inc, the footwear company Rocky Brands and the apparel company Hanesbrand, whose CEO, Stephen Bratspies, said the company is \u201cseeing tariff-related disruptions creating incremental revenue opportunities in the market\u201d.<\/p>\n

Russell Diez-Canseco, the president and CEO of Vital Farms, put it more succinctly in a recent call to investors: \u201cThe price we\u2019ve talked about, that is more than sufficient to cover the impact of the tariffs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, major brand names like Walmart and household goods titan Procter & Gamble are raising prices and attributing the move to the cost of tariffs. Several studies show such increases are already impacting customers\u2019 wallets.<\/p>\n

In a July 3 survey, nearly half of the likely voters interviewed told the Groundwork Collaborative and Data for Progress that Trump\u2019s tariffs are having a negative impact on their monthly finances, with only 16 percent reporting a positive impact.<\/p>\n

Back-to-school season exacerbated these issues, as prices rose on everything from shoes to essential items as simple as pencils.<\/p>\n

\u201cParents are facing price increases across a number of categories when it comes to school supplies,\u201d Sarah Dickerson, a research economist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, told a local TV station. \u201cIf we look at pencils, for instance, we know the wooden pencils are imported from Brazil. We are anticipating price hikes there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Canary in the coal mine<\/p>\n

Lindsay Owens, the executive director of the economic think tank Groundwork Collaborative, told Al Jazeera that fall 2025 will offer the strongest picture yet of how tariffs are affecting the US economy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have long expected that some of the big price hits would drop in the fall,\u201d said Owens, whose organisation researches how the economy impacts consumers and workers.<\/p>\n

\u201cBack to school season is kind of the canary in the coal mine, but we\u2019re expecting high prices for Halloween items, for costumes, things like that that are coming in from China. We\u2019re also expecting some of these impacts to flow through to Christmas, whether that\u2019s price hikes on toys or even supply chain issues where there are just fewer toys available.\u201d<\/p>\n

Owens says rising prices and the cost of living have been the top economic issues for Americans since 2021. Now, tariffs are further influencing what Americans buy, where they buy it and, in some cases, the jobs they work or pursue.<\/p>\n

According to recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), nearly 8.8 million Americans are working more than one job \u2013 down just slightly from the all-time high of 8.9 million in February.<\/p>\n

Kay Alexander, a 30-year-old in Austin, is one of those Americans with multiple jobs.<\/p>\n

Alexander lost his job in the tech industry during a round of layoffs at the beginning of 2025. He drastically cut his food spending and started looking for a cheaper apartment, which proved nearly impossible in Austin.<\/p>\n

\u201cPrices surge within a few months without any notice,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Shortly after the layoff, he noticed \u201cdaily essentials\u201d such as groceries becoming more expensive. BLS data shows the cost of groceries has risen 29 percent since February 2020, while another study shows prices are up almost 3 percent from this time last year.<\/p>\n

Alexander and his partner cut out snack foods and opted for the cheapest possible option for items like eggs and milk, which still weren\u2019t that cheap. Plus, he added, \u201cI can taste the difference.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s definitely shifted the way that we shop and the way that we eat,\u201d he said of the tariffs. Even now that he has found a pair of part-time jobs and feels more comfortable dining out or going to a bar, he says he is still focused on saving \u201cas much money as possible\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard to put in words the trauma of a job loss right now, when you know you might have to replace that one job with two others,\u201d he said. \u201cSo I\u2019m trying to save and do whatever I can to avoid that feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n

He has gotten used to buying lower-quality groceries, but now he feels as if his quality of life is worsening. For instance, he\u2019s grown to like one of his part-time jobs even more than his project management work in the tech industry. But he feels drawn back to the volatile tech sector, if only to pay his higher bills.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really have to figure out, am I going to go to work and make sure that I can keep up with my bills, or am I going to show up for myself and make sure that I\u2019m OK?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u2018Food is discretionary\u2019<\/p>\n

Isabel Deniz, a 31-year-old living in Austin, Texas, agrees.<\/p>\n

She worked in social media marketing until a layoff in late 2024, and any given month, she may be working up to six side gigs to keep up with rent and other bills.<\/p>\n

When she was interviewed for this story, she was selling clothes on the online marketplace Poshmark, working as a theatre stagehand and cutting and stamping craft ice cubes for cocktail bars. Then, shortly after, she picked up yet another job: bail bond runner.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m enjoying not being in front of a screen and actually talking to people face to face and moving my entire body around, but it\u2019s also like, I need three of those jobs to survive,\u201d she said, adding that all her friends are working more than one job.<\/p>\n

\u201cGoing outside is expensive,\u201d she said. \u201cThe second you step outside, it\u2019s like, \u2018That\u2019ll be $20\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

That means she is constantly examining what qualifies as a discretionary expense.<\/p>\n

\u201cFood is discretionary at this point, and it\u2019s like, \u2018Oh, sick, a disposable income of $42. What am I going to do with 42 bones?\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m worried the worst is on the way.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m working so much that I don\u2019t really have enough time to focus on how absurd it is that I\u2019m working so much, you know? But when I do stop, I think, \u2018What the hell is going on?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dallas, United States \u2013\u00a0Melinda, a teacher at a Dallas high school, has an easy way to predict if…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":95391,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[174],"tags":[79,3426,356,179,18,3617,3847,19,185,10850,17,790,20151,3429,2297,384,3430],"class_list":{"0":"post-95390","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-business-and-economy","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-economy","12":"tag-eire","13":"tag-features","14":"tag-housing","15":"tag-ie","16":"tag-inflation","17":"tag-international-trade","18":"tag-ireland","19":"tag-politics","20":"tag-poverty-and-development","21":"tag-trade-war","22":"tag-unemployment","23":"tag-united-states","24":"tag-us-canada"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95390\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}