MIDWEST — For families across the Midwest and Great Lakes, the squeeze is showing up everywhere. At the grocery store, the gas pump, the electric bill and so many other places. For workers, the problem is not simply that prices are higher. It is that the cost of living is rising at a time when too many policies coming out of Washington are making it harder to build, invest and create the kind of good-paying jobs that allow families to keep up.
Recent federal data shows just how broad the problem has become. In the Midwest, overall consumer prices were up 3.5 percent from July 2025 to July 2026 according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Food prices were up 2.8 percent. But energy was the real standout: the Midwest energy index was up 14.2 percent year over year, including a 23.1 percent increase in gasoline prices and an 8.1 percent increase in electricity.
Tariffs are hitting the things Americans need to build
The Trump administration’s tariff policies have put another layer of costs onto an economy that is already struggling with affordability.
As of April 2026, steel, aluminum and copper products covered by the new tariffs faced rates as high as 50 percent. Derivatives of those metals faced 25 percent tariffs, while softwood lumber faced a 10 percent tariff. Construction equipment and electrical components incorporating these materials have also faced additional tariff costs.
That matters enormously in a region like the Midwest, where construction, manufacturing, homebuilding and infrastructure are major parts of the economy. It means higher front-end costs for a contractor building a project in the Midwest.
The Center for American Progress estimates that the Trump administration’s tariffs on homebuilding materials could increase the average cost of constructing a new home by roughly $17,500 and result in 450,000 fewer homes being built through 2030.
At a moment when housing is already unaffordable for many working families, making houses more expensive and harder to build is exactly the wrong direction.
And the Midwest needs those construction jobs
Construction is one of the places where the Midwest has historically been able to turn investment into middle-class paychecks. But tariffs raise the cost of the very materials those workers use. That can mean fewer projects, tighter margins, delayed construction and ultimately fewer hours and jobs.
Another lost opportunity: manufacturing
Manufacturing is another part of the story that should be particularly concerning in the Great Lakes region. Cars, steel, machinery, appliances and more are built in the Midwest.
Yet since January 2025, a study conducted by BW Research for E2 estimates that 216 large-scale clean-energy and clean-vehicle manufacturing and electricity-generation projects that were canceled, closed or downsized represented approximately 468,000 jobs that otherwise could have been supported, along with $68 billion in lost capital investment.
These aren’t all jobs that were already sitting on payrolls and then disappeared. The figure represents jobs the canceled, closed or downsized projects were projected to support. That distinction matters. And it doesn’t generate the economic activity that follows when thousands of people receive a reliable paycheck and spend it in their communities.
Republicans only have themselves to blame
There are plenty of forces behind higher prices that no president or political party completely controls. Global energy markets, weather, supply chains, corporate decisions and international conflicts can all affect what Americans pay.
But that doesn’t mean Washington’s decisions don’t matter.
Republicans chose to impose broad tariffs on important construction and manufacturing inputs.
Republicans chose to roll back or weaken major clean-energy and manufacturing incentives.
The Bottom Line
For families in the Midwest, prices are up, paychecks are stagnant or down and spending power is being burned at both ends of the candle.
