Inflation and tariffs; financial impacts loom for locals

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. — Inflation and tariffs still have a hold on the U.S. economy.

"The general public is confused on which tariffs are actually in place and which are not, it's not surprising because it's not quite clear," Dr. David Mitchell, an economist, said. "The only ones that I know of that are currently in place are the ones dealing with steel and copper. Those have been in place. Those don't seem to have been removed or diminished in any sense. You have some other ones that are kind of specialized on some goods and services out of China that have been kind of reduced, but haven't been reduced back to where they were before."

Mitchell says inflation is still an issue across America.

"We still have an inflation issue, but prices aren't going to go back down. When we have a reduction in inflation, what we actually talk about is a reduction in the rate of increase of prices. In order for prices to go back down, that would actually be deflation," Mitchell said. "Getting the prices that you paid five years ago for things is just not going to happen."

Today, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, on social media, touted positive economic advancements under the second Trump administration, including "Biden's inflation crisis is defeated; Wages are growing; Prices are falling; Trillions in private investment; $113 billion in tariff revenue."

Mitchell says that when it comes to the claims on inflation and tariffs, Leavitt's claim is partly true.

"When people say inflation was 10% and now it's say, 3%, what that means is that prices used to go up at 10% a year. Now they're going up at 3% a year, so you've seen a reduction in the rate of increase. They're still going up, but they're just going up at a much slower rate," Mitchell said. "In June for the first time, I think in roughly I think 20 or 25 years, they actually had more coming in than they had going out. So they actually they ran a budget surplus for the month, not for the whole year, but just for a month, and that's just true. I mean, that's you can look at the numbers and it's that's not, you know, something that's debatable or anything else to that effect. A lot of that extra did probably come from tariffs, but once again, that's the tariffs are really basically taxes on consumers."

OzarksFirst spoke to people this afternoon about what they're seeing when they check out.

"As a matter of fact, every time I go to the store, I feel like everything is risen. It's higher all the time," Joyce G. said.

"It's not going down. It's getting worse every day. It's getting impossible, particularly for young people. They can't buy a house. I can't afford food anymore. I have to be very careful. I didn't used to have to be careful," Linda Bower said.

Bower and Joyce G. are also not fans of tariffs overall.

"I will say that the tariffs are definitely a tax on the American people. We are paying for these prices to go up and for no good reason," Bower said.

"I was not in favor of them at all, and I don't know that they're helping anything," Joyce G. said.

Many stores may push sales before tariffs become official, but Mitchell says that's mostly marketing.

"Firms bought a whole bunch of inventory ahead of the tariffs to basically stock up on these lower-priced goods. Now, you know, some of the tariffs have hit it and some of them have not. They kind of don't know when they'll come in, if they're coming or how much they're going to be, and now they're stuck with a lot of inventory. Inventory is expensive to keep around. You've got to insure it. You've got to make sure nobody's stealing it. It's got to be stored somewhere. You've got to transport it from the warehouse. It's a whole lot easier to sell it," Mitchell said.

"The minute you start saying inflation, the corporations start raising their prices, even though their costs didn't go up because they'd already bought the stuff that they're selling us, they're price gouging," Bower said.