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Comment by bill_joy_fanboy | Hacker News Reader

> Then they’ve failed to imagine how much more difficult their life will become under excessive tariffs.

Again, these workers don't have jobs. When the John Deere factory closes down in your town and moves to Mexico, tariffs sound good even if it's just to punish such companies and the abuse of their workers.

If you're unemployed and living on whatever odd jobs and government assistance you can get, tariffs won't make one bit of difference in your life. Factories may even return, and your life may improve. It's better than just accepting your situation.

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> If you're unemployed and living on whatever odd jobs and government assistance you can get, tariffs won't make one bit of difference in your life.

Prices going up on everything will absolutely make a difference in their lives. Even with government assistance and very low income, they still have to buy things to live - and they'll be able to afford even less. The poorer you are, the harder this is going to hit you.

> If you're unemployed and living on whatever odd jobs and government assistance you can get, tariffs won't make one bit of difference in your life.

Categorically false.

Tariffs raise prices for consumers. These tariffs will make it even harder for them to make ends meet.

Tariffs will have an larger impact on low income people because they act as a flat tax on goods. There is a certain fixed dollar value that everyone needs to survive the month, and that value just got larger while income remained the same. When you're poor the smallest increase in cost of living pushes you in to the red.

This is why inflation was such a huge issue. I fail to see how this is any different.

> This is why inflation was such a huge issue. I fail to see how this is any different.

This time it's vaguely patriotic to pay more, I guess.

They’ll make things harder to afford but I get your point. They had one way to make money which was their factory and now it’s gone and orange man is promising he’ll bring it back. It’s a no brainer, of course you go all in on that one hope that you have.

> If you're unemployed and living on whatever odd jobs and government assistance you can get, tariffs won't make one bit of difference in your life.

Of course it will, since price inflation is going to hit the low (or no) income people the hardest.

And if the government assistance you mentioned is all cut away, it's going to be much worse.

> If you're unemployed and living on whatever odd jobs and government assistance you can get, tariffs won't make one bit of difference in your life.

That government assistance is also being threatened (often by adding work requirements to it), and those odd jobs can also go away or become much more scarce if the economy goes over the edge.

Finally, the cost of everything will go up, which will hit those that are scraping by with odd jobs and government assistance the hardest.

I hope it doesn’t happen, but when you assert things are as bad as they can get, that just doesn’t match the situation you described. They can get worse.

When their government assistance goes to 0 and the prices of everything they buy go up, I'm sure they'll notice.

This is the same group who voted based on the price of eggs increasing.

You might still notice the cost of everything you buy going up ~20%

Don't they have to buy things too?

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