TV: How would higher consumer prices and inflation impact young people in particular, many of whom are already having a hard time getting by?
AH: They’re going to have a harder time getting by. And the things that are really important for young people, not just in consuming but as they grow up and develop in life — getting a house, getting college, buying a car — these things are all going to be more expensive than the electronics, devices that we all rely on. It’s going to be more expensive. In the short term, we know it’s going to raise these prices for everything, pretty much, and particularly where, you know, we’re really shooting ourselves in the foot….
If we put a tariff on coffee, put tariffs on avocados, we’re just paying more for things that we can’t produce ourselves…. We have the Federal Reserve that’s trying to manage inflation, so when they see this happening, they’re going to want to tighten monetary policy. That means they’re going to raise interest rates…. Everything becomes more expensive, but in particular, credit card debt, student debt, auto debt, and of course… buying a house will become further out of reach for young people [if interest rates are higher].
TV: How do tariffs actually get enacted? Can Trump do this via executive order or does he need Congress to do it via legislation?
AH: Congress has given the president, historically, the law’s authority to declare economic emergencies, import emergencies. Under those authorities, the president can do this as they see fit…. There will be some political resistance to this, and what happened in the past is that they created a process for importers to petition to have an exclusion. So even though there will be a broadly applied tariff, certain people will get licenses to import without the tariff, and given the lack of transparency we’re expecting in the incoming administration, this could open the door for a lot of corrupt dealing.
TV: Can you talk through some of Trump’s other economic policies and how they will impact young people?
AH: I think the mass deportation policy is going to be one of the most impactful, and in a bad way, economic policies he’s told us he wants to pursue. If he achieves what he says he wants to achieve, he’s talking about ripping 12 million people out of communities, out of jobs and workplaces, across schools, across the country. That has trillions of dollars of economic impacts of losses for consumers. They’re business owners, workers, and producers. So we won’t be able to readily fill those jobs. The economy is already operating near full employment. That means we don’t have more people to fill the jobs. Everyone is working that really wants to or can…. We’ll have massive labor shortages…. not to mention the horrific humanitarian implications of this policy of ripping families apart.
TV: What should young people do to prepare? Does buying goods in advance make sense?
AH: People need to start paying attention to understand what’s happening and what are the causes of things that are affecting them and their economic situation. [Take action,] whether it’s something you do for yourself in your personal life or something you do together in a community, or more broadly, in social organizing….
There’s a trade-off to stocking up. You have to pay for stuff now, and that means you can’t pay for other stuff that you may want. Some stuff may not last. It’s not convenient to hold on to a big stockpile of stuff. So you can do a little bit of that, but you’re kind of in for the ride.
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