Think deportations and construction labor force (not housing demand), and tariffs and construction costs.
On the first point, Ben Zipperer‘s comment on the impact of removals in “Secure Communities”:
On the impact of tariffs on housing costs:
Figure 1: PPI for construction materials (blue), construction costs for single unit houses, Fisher index (tan), and average hourly earnings for construction workers (production and nonsupervisory) (green), all in logs, 2025M01=0. Source: BLS via FRED, BLS, Census, and author’s calculations.
It is interesting that PPI-construction materials — while not including tariffs — reverses the pre-tariff downward trend, and starts rising. This makes sense insofar as domestic producers raise prices in line with import plus tariff prices.
Interestingly, in his recent diagnosis of why housing is unaffordable, EJ Antoni mentions neither the lack of construction labor nor the high costs of inputs.
Speaking of prices and pricing, Lina Khan has found a new place to work her magic:
https://www.semafor.com/article/11/12/2025/lina-khans-populist-plan-for-new-york-cheaper-hot-dogs-and-other-things
Mamdani getting tips from Khan. This is going to be fun.
The felon-in-chief haa finally figured out that tariffs raise prices:
https://www.reuters.com/business/trump-cuts-tariffs-beef-coffee-other-foods-inflation-concerns-mount-2025-11-14/
But, but…who’s gonna pay for my $2,000 check? And tax cuts? And money for farmers? And how come he isn’t doing anything to lower housing costs? And if he got tariffs wrong, what else did he get wrong?
Trump promised me 2% mortgage. We are not even close to delivering on that promise. Although tanking the economy might get us there. Maybe i should be careful what i wish for.
And is the felon-in-chief rushing to do trade deals with Latin American countries to dissuade them from criticizing what he’s about to do in Venezuela?
Trump is going to whip inflation the same way Volcker did — by putting millions of people out of work and making them poorer.