Tariffs are still driving up material costs

ENR’s 20-city average price for steel climbed 11.9% by the end of 2025, while ENR’s Materials Cost Index rose 2.5% year‑over‑year. (enr.com)) ENR also recorded the Building Cost Index up 4.2% and the Construction Cost Index up 3.6% for the year, with skilled labor wages rising 5.7% and common labor wages up 4.0%. (enr.com)) Equitable Growth’s analysis identifies construction, manufacturing, mining and repair & maintenance as the U.S. sectors facing the largest first‑order tariff cost burdens, and reports estimated tariff rates “ballooned” in the first half of 2025 and remained elevated through year‑end. (equitablegrowth.org)) Equitable Growth notes the Supreme Court struck down the administration’s use of IEEPA for tariff setting, after which the administration imposed broad tariffs under a different legal authority and signaled continued commodity‑specific investigations, with lawsuits and refund claims already filed in the U.S. Court of International Trade. (equitablegrowth.org)) The Equitable Growth tariff model used in its estimates assumed a 10% flat tariff on imports plus reciprocal tariffs slated to take effect in August 2025 (per the Reed Smith Trade Compliance Resource Hub), and the study draws on BEA input‑output tables, USITC import data, BLS employment series and Census County Business Patterns. (equitablegrowth.org)) Floor Covering News reports hardwood and engineered‑wood tariffs commonly add 10%–25% to landed costs and can be substantially higher when anti‑dumping or countervailing duties apply, prompting many importers to shift sourcing to Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia and to increase U.S. inventory levels (Denali’s U.S. distributor said it raised inventory and was not planning price increases). (fcnews.net))