Mainstream media discourse on Donald Trump’s new trade war with Canada, Mexico, China and the EU has focused largely on the impact on middle-class families, farmers, automakers and small businesses.
Reporting on tariffs has not addressed those already living on the edge: Americans in poverty who will be most impacted by rising food, clothing and housing prices. It also has not addressed the most vulnerable communities which are also traditionally the most underserved: Black, Latin@ and LGBTQ+ people.
Trump has already declared in an interview with Fox News anchor Maria Bartiromo — that tariffs will cause “some disruption” and has repeated this in press conferences. Bartiromo pressured Trump for more details about the tariffs and about their impact on consumers, but Trump dismissed her, saying there would be “some disruption,” a phrase he has since repeated in press conferences.
On NBC’s “Meet the Press” on March 16, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, the highest-placed out gay cabinet member in U.S. history, was dismissive about the costs of tariffs as well. He told anchor Kristen Welker that the American dream was “not contingent on cheap baubles from China.”
While Bessent told Welker that recession wasn’t imminent, he also ignored the points she raised about food prices for American consumers, saying people “can’t eat flat screens” and asserting that buying a home and higher wages are the most important issues, while offering no signal for relief from tariff pain for those who aren’t wealthy. Nor did Bessent explain how higher wages and lower housing costs would be effectuated by tariffs which have already caused layoffs as well as a rise in construction costs.
Bessent repeated these comments in aggressive questioning by a frustrated Bartiromo attempting to get more clear answers on her Fox Business program.
Thus rising costs aren’t just predicted for Americans but promised by Trump and Bessent.
For Philadelphia, the Trump tariff trade war presents a series of crises for the city, which no one appears to be addressing.
Philadelphia poverty
It is a confounding statistic of long-standing: Philadelphia is the poorest big city in the U.S. hitting 20.3% in 2023. Another percentage, 9.7% as of 2023, or 1 in 10 Philadelphians, lives in what is termed “deep poverty,” which is less than 50% of the federal poverty level a year, and less than $2.15 per day.
Mayor Cherelle Parker delivered her new budget to City Council March 13. Parker addressed housing, which is a national crisis and concomitant with poverty, and addiction, which she called a “humanitarian crisis.” Her budget allocates $800 million for housing and $500 million toward addiction services.
While both housing crises and addiction issues can be concomitant with poverty, they are not actual poverty, nor its constant companion, food insecurity, which Parker also did not mention.
Pennsylvania is grappling with a food insecurity crisis, with nearly 1.5 million residents experiencing hunger, including 436,000 children. The statewide food insecurity rate has risen to 11.9% — its highest level since 2017, according to Feeding America’s Map the Meal Gap. In Philadelphia County, the rate is even higher at 15.2%.
“We’re continuing to see food insecurity rise across the state and across the country,” said Julie Bancroft, CEO of Feeding Pennsylvania, in a 2024 interview with Metro. “That’s likely related to increased food costs and other costs of household goods, other household expenses, so people have to often make difficult decisions about whether they’re going to feed themselves.
“Food insecurity is oftentimes experienced by people who are working, in many cases, not just one job but multiple jobs,” Bancroft added. “Trying to humanize food insecurity is really important and understanding it impacts all walks of life”
Philabundance reports that in their catchment area in Philadelphia, 600,000 were food insecure in 2022. Among LGBTQ+ people, 13.1% of Philadelphians report food insecurity in the past seven days compared with 7% of non-LGBTQ+ people. For those from communities of color, those numbers are higher.
Why is Philadelphia so poor?
The why of Philadelphia poverty is unsurprising, but the inability of leadership to effect change in that statistic or even address it, as in Parker’s budget, raises the question of why Philadelphia poverty remains so glaringly different from that of the other top ten most populous U.S. cities. How does Parker consider addiction a “humanitarian crisis” worthy of a $600 million outlay while not even mentioning the clear twin crises of poverty and food insecurity?
Philadelphia is majority people of color — this statistic is a defining factor in the city’s poverty level. Segregation is often cited as having had a generations-long impact. As of 2024, 28.8% of minor children, 33% of Hispanic and 28% of Black Philadelphians lived in poverty. Among LGBTQ+ people, 31% of those 18 to 24, 29% of cisgender bisexual women and 29% of transgender people report living in poverty in Philadelphia.
Poverty brings other inherent issues for poor people. Poor neighborhoods like the poorest in the city — Germantown, Fairhill and Kensington — are also more likely to have high rates of violence, creating still more issues for residents.
Germantown has long been an enclave for lesbian couples, while many trans people of color live in Fairhill and Kensington.
The issues of poverty are manifold, putting those dealing with its vicissitudes at daily risk from many outside forces. How much does poverty lead to people seeking illegal ways to access money or food? These are questions for Philadelphia leadership and for national leadership. The Democratic party talks about the middle- and working- classes, but not the working poor or unemployed poor, like the elderly, disabled and minors.
COVID anniversary
March 11 marked the fifth anniversary of the country shutting down for COVID in 2020, which Philadelphia, like many cities in America, has not completely recovered from.
The impact of tariffs on the already complicated recovery narratives in Philadelphia and nationally has not been discussed with regard to how many people lost jobs, lost housing or lost family members.
Small businesses and all aspects of the hospitality industry which employs a majority of Philadelphia’s as well as the nation’s working poor were decimated. Some have been able to recover and rebuild, but Black and brown women and LGBTQ+ people who are the majority of those working in those areas did not recover their incomes or, often, their jobs.
As PGN detailed while covering the pandemic, LGBTQ+ people, particularly those who are Black or Latin@, experienced far more impact from the pandemic than their non-LGBTQ+ peers.
Stock market crash
While the majority of the stock market is owned by the rich with the top 10% owned by the super wealthy, indicating yet again how wealth is concentrated in the U.S., the stock market is not just for the wealthy.
Middle- and even working-class Americans, including those traditionally underserved demographics of people of color and LGBTQ+ people, are invested in the stock market. Millions of middle- and working-class Americans contribute to stock plans through 401ks, IRAs, pensions, college funds and other plans drawn directly from their weekly paychecks and invested into a range of stocks including mutual funds and NASDAQ
Since Trump began his tariff trade war, the stock market has plunged nearly every day, gutting the retirement security of former trade workers, teachers, social services workers and more.
Trump held a car sale of Teslas on the White House lawn last week in an unethical event many legal experts assert violates the Hatch Act. The sale was to help his DOGE head Elon Musk, who is also the world’s wealthiest man. Tesla stock has plunged during the tariff war, a fact not mentioned during Trump’s pitch for Tesla.
Tesla has lost $700 billion in the stock crash with reaction to Musk’s job cuts and far-right views purportedly also causing a sell-off both in the U.S. and abroad with Tesla sales in Germany tumbling 76% in February.
Stocks were down again March 18 and the NASDAQ has already moved into corrections.
Thus the tariffs have far-reaching implications for most Americans who are not wealthy and for the never-mentioned Americans living in poverty, whose lives will be most affected and most dramatically.
