Pain Street: Trump’s Small Business Affordability Crisis (PDF)

(Washington, February 11) – Ranking Member Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) today released a report detailing how President Donald Trump’s affordability crisis is hurting Main Streets and working families across America. Ranking Member Markey’s report comes as America’s small businesses face a laundry list of high costs due to Trump’s hostile economic policies: A $63.1 billion bill for Trump’s reckless tariff taxes, skyrocketing health care costs as insurance premiums rise by 114% on average, shocking electricity bills, and unaffordable child care. The report condemns the Trump administration’s efforts to tear down Main Street small businesses and working families, calling for policies that make life more affordable for every American.

“Small businesses don’t have Mar-a-Lago memberships, golden gifts, or ballroom invitations granting them special exemptions from Trump’s reckless economic policies, including his tariff taxes,” said Ranking Member Markey. “Since Inauguration Day, Trump has made life more expensive for Americans—driving up costs on everything from health care, electricity, and groceries to child care and housing—all while giving tax cuts to CEO billionaires and currying favors with big business. As Trump's affordability crisis wreaks havoc on Main Street, we must fight back to protect small businesses, working families, and communities in Massachusetts and across the country.”

Key findings from Ranking Member Markey’s Pain Street report include:

  • Trump’s reckless tariffs are turning Main Street into Pain Street. Since March 2025, America’s small businesses have paid more than $63.1 billion in Trump tariff taxes, including $8.1 billion in November alone.
  • Businesses with fewer than 500 workers lost 132,000 jobs since April 2025—disproportionally more jobs than the overall economy.
  • As a result of Trump’s tariff taxes, U.S. manufacturing shrank for the tenth consecutive month in December, and U.S. factories have shed 72,000 jobs since Trump’s so-called “liberation day” in April.
  • Over 18 million small business owners and workers face unaffordable health insurance costs due to Medicaid cuts from the Big Ugly Bill and the expiration of Affordable Care Act (ACA) premium tax credits.
  • More than 57 percent of small businesses have seen their electricity costs increase in the last year—a trend likely to increase. On average, Americans’ household electric bills have increased by 11.5 percent and commercial electric bills have increased by 9 percent since Trump took office.
  • Last year, 70 percent of families said raising children is too expensive—a 13-point jump from 2024.
  • Soaring rents have left a record 22.6 million renters—approximately 50 percent of all renters in the U.S.—struggling to afford their rent.
  • President Trump’s deportation agenda, including the termination of the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designation for many countries, is estimated to reduce the number of immigrant workers by more than 3 million, and U.S.-born workers by 2.6 million.

Ranking Member Markey is leading the fight to deliver real relief for America’s small businesses.

  • In January, Ranking Member Markey condemned Donald Trump’s attacks on rural communities and heard from Massachusetts witnesses about the importance of supporting small agricultural businesses at a Small Business Committee hearing titled, “Growing the Small Business Agricultural Economy.”
  • In December, Ranking Member Markey, alongside Senator Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and two small businesses owners, held a press conference to call out the skyrocketing costs imposed on small businesses by Trump’s economic policies.  
  • In November, Ranking Member Markey sent a letter to Small Business Administration (SBA) Administrator Kelly Loeffler, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, and Acting Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors (CEA) Pierre Yared to renew his call for an equitable tariff refund process for small businesses.
  • Earlier in November, Ranking Member Markey hosted a press conference to highlight the voices of small business owners impacted by Trump’s devastating tariffs, and to call on the Supreme Court to strike down the tariffs.
  • In September, Ranking Member Markey introduced the Small Business RELIEF Act, which exempts small businesses from Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariff taxes and requires the President to provide refunds to small businesses who have paid them.
  • In August, Ranking Member Markey sent a letter to Small Business Administration (SBA) Administrator Kelly Loeffler, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, and CEA Chair Stephen Miran, calling on their respective agencies to establish and publicize procedures for refunding tariffs to American businesses.
  • In May, Ranking Member Markey first attempted to pass the Small Business Liberation Act, legislation that would exempt small businesses from the broad, reckless global tariffs imposed by the Trump administration. In August, Ranking Member Markey returned to the Senate floor in an effort to pass the Small Business Liberation Act. Republicans blocked his legislation on the Senate floor on both occasions.
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