EXCLUSIVE: Democrats Say Tariffs Have Cost 60,000 Construction Jobs

Tariffs imposed by the Trump administration contributed to the loss of nearly 60,000 home construction jobs since December 2024, according to a new congressional analysis.

The figures cited in the report, released by the Joint Economic Committee minority, represent less than 2% of the workforce.

In the analysis, Democrats argue that tariffs—and the policy swings surrounding them—are raising the cost of key building materials, slowing permits and housing starts, and making it harder to add homes in a market already short more than 4 million units.

But a strong jobs report, released on Friday, may be proof of a more complicated reality.

Nonfarm payrolls grew by 178,000 jobs in March—including 14,300 in residential construction—and the White House is pointing to that growth as proof that President Donald Trump’s economic agenda is working.

"America remains on a solid economic trajectory thanks to President Trump’s proven agenda of tax cuts, deregulation, tariffs, and energy dominance," White House spokesman Kush Desai said in a press release following the jobs report. 

In a statement to Realtor.com®, White House spokesman Davis Ingle cast that strength as part of a wider push on affordability.

“The President will not stop fighting until the American Dream of homeownership is within reach for every American, and he continues to sign bold new executive orders and calls on Congress to pass further legislation,” Ingle said.

Still, the strong month-over-month growth for residential construction represents a 0.9% decrease from the prior year, according to an analysis from the Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC). Nonresidential construction, meanwhile, posted stronger year-over-year growth at 1.7%.

Democrats say that gap is evidence of the deeper strain tariffs may be putting on an already constrained housing market.

"Home builders are sounding the alarm about the ways in which the President’s tariffs are driving construction costs higher," Maggie Hassan, Democratic senator for New Hampshire and ranking member of the Joint Economic Committee, said in a statement to Realtor.com. 

Less than 2% of the workforce was lost

The JEC report's job-loss figure reflects a decline in actual payroll employment in residential construction and specialty trade contractors. The drop would amount to less than 2% of the industry’s total workforce, according to Joel Berner, senior economist at Realtor.com.

It also marks a sharp U-turn from just a year ago, when ABC estimated the industry was short 439,000 workers.

It is a change Chris Hock, a Colorado-based general contractor, says he has seen firsthand.

“In the COVID years, I couldn’t keep up. Our phone rang nonstop,” Hock says. “We just couldn’t get the work done,” in large part because he lacked the staff to scale operations to demand.

Now, the problem looks vastly different.

“There’s a lot of good contractors out there that are available for us to pick up, because the housing market has slowed so much,” he says.

The industry is still short on labor—ABC now pegs the gap at 349,000 workers—but that deficit has dropped dramatically alongside the slowdown in new-construction permits.

Residential permit issuance in 2025 ran below 2024 levels in every month except one, an early sign that builders were pulling back, according to the report from JEC. By December 2025, the annual pace of housing starts had fallen by more than 100,000 homes from a year earlier, according to the report’s calculations.

But broader economic headwinds are contributing to that deficit, too.

"Interest rates are the biggest contributing factor for permit activity and sentiment because they affect the cost of capital on the supply side as well as buyer budgets via mortgage rates on the demand side," says Berner.

For contractors like Hock, that slowdown has required a strategic shift. He says he is spending more time in sales, chasing larger commercial projects that seem safer in an unpredictable environment.

“If I don’t feed the monster, I have to let go of a lot of people,” he says, adding that layoffs aren’t an option he entertains.

Costs of raw materials spike

The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) estimates that 7% of all goods used in residential construction are imported from a foreign nation. The group has been vocal in its opposition to tariffs, which it frames as a direct “tax on American builders, home buyers and consumers.”

Or, in Berner’s words, "Tariffs certainly don't help costs of building, though, and you could argue that they slow down buyer demand as well.”

Among the steepest price increases from tariffs were copper and copper products—up 24.8% from a year earlier, the JEC report found.

While sometimes framed as a tax paid for by the supplier, the cost is paid for by the company that imports the goods. And because copper and similar raw goods are used so heavily in housing, that kind of steep price increase can be hard to absorb.

The average single-family home, for perspective, has almost 440 pounds of copper in it—baked into everything from electrical wiring and plumbing tubing to appliances.

Supporters of tariffs, however, argue that they are essential in rebalancing the trade deficit.

“President Trump’s use of tariffs has proven to be an effective tool for countering unfair trade practices and restoring American strength,” Jill Homan, deputy director of Trade & Economy Policy of America First Policy Institute, said in a November statement.

Steel is perhaps the best example. 

Steel mill products—including materials such as bars, wire, pipes, and plates—were also among the products that saw the steepest hike, with prices rising 20.9%. Sheet metal products climbed 6.2%, and prices for tools, hardware, and related supplies rose 6.6%.

Those spikes have led to more domestic steel demand, with steel imports falling 12.6% in 2025 while domestic raw steel production rose 5% year over year through March 2026, according to the American Iron and Steel Institute, a trade industry that supports the tariffs.

These "measures will help protect the integrity of the steel tariff program, preserve domestic capacity, and encourage additional investment in U.S. steelmaking and downstream manufacturing,” Kevin Dempsey, president and CEO of AISI, said after an April announcement that strengthened tariffs on steel.

The JEC report doesn't include lumber, which is generally considered one of the biggest materials expenses in homebuilding. Framing alone can account for more than 11% of a home's total construction cost, according to the NAHB.

While costs for lumber have fallen in early 2026, NAHB warns that it could be a volatile year driven by domestic mill closures and continued tariffs on Canadian suppliers.

Hock says he hasn’t felt these spikes as acutely because he changed many of his suppliers to U.S.-based companies during the supply chain troubles of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, he’s noticed that he's paying more in the checkout line when buying supplies from big retailers.

Buying American does not necessarily shield consumers from tariff costs, since many of these companies still rely on imported raw materials.

Some U.S. appliance manufacturers, for example, fall into this category, and the report found that those costs are now showing up on store shelves. The average price of the most popular ovens rose 9%, or $70.33, while dryers and washing machines each rose 6%, increasing by $51 and $44.33, respectively.

For the typical American household, these added costs amounted to a tax increase of $1,000 in 2025, according to a recent analysis from the Tax Foundation, a conservative-leaning think tank.

Builders say the bigger problem isn’t cost, but uncertainty

For builders, those costs have been compounded by the shifting policy.

Ten months after “Liberation Day,” Trump's reciprocal tariffs were struck down by the Supreme Court, then quickly replaced with new global tariffs.

Copper, aluminum, and steel have gone through some of the most dramatic policy shifts of the past year. Tariffs on steel and aluminum jumped from 25% in February 2025 to 50% in June, while copper was later swept into the same 50% Section 232 framework.

In early April, the administration cut duty rates on derivative products with more than 15% of copper, aluminum, or steel by weight to a flat 25%. This category can include things like appliances and could provide some welcome relief.

Other goods made abroad but with U.S. metals will also be subject to lower tariffs of 10%.

A shifting landscape like that is hard for any business, but perhaps especially so in construction, where projects are expensive, timelines are long, and margins are often tight.

“This uncertain time is very scary,” says Hock. “As a business owner, you know, we’re constantly trying to figure out what is the next thing.”

While Hock says he’s found a new niche amid the uncertainty, it’s forced others to delay projects while they rework financial assumptions, brace for additional price swings, or sort through supply-chain disruptions, according to the report.

As a result, sentiment has taken a major hit.

Homebuilder confidence fell in 2025 to some of its weakest levels since 2012, underscoring how volatility is dragging on the industry, according to the report.

Regulations limit building supply

The United States has long been short on housing. Today, that gap stands at 4.03 million homes, and in many markets, zoning rules, permitting bottlenecks, and other constraints already limit how quickly builders can add supply.

The White House, for its part, says the administration is working to correct this.

“President Trump has taken significant action to improve housing affordability,” Ingle says.

He points to the president's executive order aimed at curbing large investors’ purchases of single-family homes, his directive for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to purchase $200 billion in mortgage bonds, and the administration's broader efforts to cut red tape to boost supply and speed construction.

"The Trump Administration will never stop working to streamline regulations and expand housing affordability for all Americans," he adds.

Still, independent analyses from Capital Economics and NAHB point to a stark reality. Their estimates say tariffs are adding between $9,200 and $10,900 to the cost of building a home, respectively.

Hock says he sees that pressure clearly on the ground. 

“It’s definitely keeping prices higher for homes,” he says. “It’s impossible to buy a new home if you’re just starting out.”

The JEC Republican majority said it was unable to provide comment when contacted by Realtor.com.