Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand says tariffs cost New Yorkers $4,200 a year. Most recent estimates are lower

After the Supreme Court struck down many of President Donald Trump’s tariffs in February, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., cosponsored legislation seeking to directly compensate Americans for the tariffs’ costs. Refunds are currently being given to the U.S. businesses that paid them, not to consumers directly.

Gillibrand was one of eight co-sponsors of the Tariff Refunds for Working Families Act (S.4093), which would provide tax rebates using funds collected from tariffs imposed by the Trump administration. Individual recipients would receive rebates of $600; joint filers would receive $1,200. The measure would provide an extra $600 per child. (The bill has eight Democratic cosponsors but has not advanced.)

In a March 19 press release, Gillibrand said, "President Trump’s tariffs are costing New York households an estimated $4,200 annually." Gillibrand credited the figure to a November report from New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office.

How well supported is that $4,200 figure? Analyses show it’s outdated.

Gillibrand’s office didn’t respond to inquiries from PolitiFact New York. 

The $4,200 figure comes from outdated governor’s office report

Gillibrand’s press release referenced a governor’s office report; that report traced the $4,200 figure to another report from Hochul’s office. It referred to calculations from the New York State Division of the Budget that put the "new effective tariff rate" at 21% on imported goods, or $4,200 more per New York household.

That figure appeared in an Aug. 7 press release by Hochul’s office that said the July 30 tariffs would cost consumers nearly $33 billion in additional import taxes to continue buying the same amount of foreign goods. "This is nearly $4,200 in additional federal taxes per household in New York," it said.

Hochul’s office told PolitiFact New York the budget department’s analysis focused only on New York state. New York’s median income ranks 16th among states, so back-of-the-envelope calculations put the per-household burden in New York somewhat higher than these national averages.

A bigger issue, though, is timing. In a statement, Hochul’s office said the data had not been updated since August. That’s a big omission in Gillibrand’s statement, experts said.

Other estimates of the tariffs’ cost per household 

In May 2025, we rated Mostly True Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.’s statement that the tariffs meant American families would pay about $4,000 more a year. This is what we found:

• Yale Budget Lab. Yale University’s nonpartisan Budget Lab’s estimate in 2025 showed an average loss per household of $4,900. The lab also offered a more limited calculation that accounted for changes in consumer behavior because of tariffs without factoring those in as losses; that worked out to an estimated $2,600 cost per family.

• Center for American Progress. The Center for American Progress, a liberal group, estimated an average loss of $4,600 annually.  

• American Action Forum. The American Action Forum, a center-right think tank, estimated a roughly $3,900 loss per household.

• Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center. The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center estimated that the average household loss would be $3,100.

• Tax Foundation. The center-right Tax Foundation put the average loss lower than the other four: $1,243.

But subsequent analyses have shown more modest financial impacts, partly because Trump has lowered tariffs on China. So Gillibrand’s $4,200 estimate is no longer within that range.

In February, about a month before Gillibrand’s statement, we found lower estimates::

• Tax Foundation. The group estimated that, in 2025, Trump tariffs contributed to an average tax increase of $1,000 per household, with a projected $700 hit for 2026.

• Yale Budget Lab. The group estimated in November and January an average income loss of about $1,700, based on consumer prices. Using another measure based on spending relative to a household’s income, the group estimated the median cost at $1,400 per household.

• National Taxpayers Union. This center-right advocacy organization estimated in August 2025 that Trump’s tariffs could cost households an average of $2,048 each year.

Derek Scissors, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute specializing in trade policy, said Gillibrand’s $4,200 was too high, especially given the most recent data.

"There’s no way I can make calculations that get to $4,200 per family," he told PolitiFact New York.

Scissors said tariff impacts varied throughout 2025 as policies shifted and some tariffs were reduced. He said household costs might reach around $2,500 during peak tariff periods but warned against assuming these effects are permanent.

"You can cherry pick the time period to get to $2,500, but that can’t be confidently projected forward because it’s a peak tariff result, and tariffs are lower, for now," he said. 

Our ruling

Gillibrand said, "President Trump’s tariffs are costing New York households an estimated $4,200 annually."

That was at the higher end of estimates in the months immediately after Trump imposed the tariffs in mid-2025. More recent estimates for 2025 are significantly lower, ranging from $1,000 to $2,000 because of tariff changes.. 

The statement contains an element of truth but ignores other information that would give a different impression, so we rate it Mostly False.