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(NEW YORK) — Some Verizon customers were experiencing a service outage on Wednesday afternoon, according to the company.
Verizon said it was not immediately clear how long the service would be down.
“We are aware of an issue impacting wireless voice and data services for some customers,” Verizon said in a statement to ABC News. “Our engineers are engaged and are working to identify and solve the issue quickly. We understand how important reliable connectivity is and apologize for the inconvenience.”
Many Verizon customers said on social media that their phones showed “SOS” in place of network bars.
According to Downdetector at least 175,000 Verizon customers were affected at one point, but that number has since gone down. Downdetector, a site that tracks outages, said Verizon customers began noticing interrupted service around noon Eastern time.
New York Emergency Management (NYCEM) officials said the outage is affecting some users calling 911.
“Verizon is working to solve the issue,” NYCEM said in a statement. “If you have an emergency and cannot connect using your Verizon Wireless device, please call using a device from another carrier, a landline, or go to a police precinct or fire station to report the emergency. In the meantime, you can check the website or social media account of your cellphone carrier for updates.”
(NEW YORK) — With new tariffs taking effect Tuesday on furniture and lumber, an analysis released by Goldman Sachs finds American consumers are paying for more than half of the cost of the levies imposed by President Donald Trump.
In a research note to its clients, the global investment and banking giant said U.S. consumers will absorb 55% of tariff costs by the end of this year. American businesses would pay 22% of the costs, foreign exporters would absorb 18% and 5% would be evaded, according to the Goldman Sachs analysis.
Consumers could end up paying 70% of the cost by the end of next year, the report said.
“At the moment, however, U.S. businesses are likely bearing a larger share of the costs because some tariffs have just gone into effect and it takes time to raise prices on consumers and negotiate lower import prices with foreign suppliers,” the analysis adds.
In a statement to ABC News, White House spokesperson Kush Desai said, “Americans may face a transition period from tariffs,” but insisted “the cost of tariffs will ultimately be borne by foreign exporters.”
“Companies are already shifting and diversifying their supply chains in response to tariffs, including by onshoring production to the United States,” Desai said. “Americans can rest assured that the Administration will continue to deliver economic relief from Joe Biden’s inflation crisis while laying the groundwork for a long-term restoration of American Greatness.”
The Yale Budget Lab reported on Sept. 26 that U.S. consumers face an overall average effective tariff rate of 17.9% – the highest since 1934.
In August, Trump blasted Goldman Sachs’ CEO David Solomon and the firm’s economists after they put out a report saying consumers will absorb tariff costs.
The new Goldman analysis, which was released on Sunday, does not take into account Trump’s latest threat to impose additional 100% tariffs on Chinese imports set to take effect on Nov. 1.
And on Tuesday, new tariffs kick in at midnight. Timber and lumber imports will face an additional 10% tariff.
Home-building costs have also been soaring and are expected to climb higher with the new tariffs on lumber. A UBS report said the new tariffs on wood products could add another $1,000 to the average cost of building a home, on top of the $8,000 in tariff costs home builders have already seen this year.
Kitchen cabinets and upholstered furniture will face new 25% tariffs. Homebuilders and some furniture companies have warned that those higher costs could mean higher prices for consumers.
Other domestic furniture makers have celebrated the new tariffs.
“These factories are the most likely to see increased demand for their domestically-produced products, because imported upholstered furniture that was previously in the same price range now will be subject to the new tariffs,” the American Home Furnishings Alliance said in a statement to ABC News.
The U.S. imported $25.5 billion in furniture in 2024, up 7% from the previous year, according to trade outlet Furniture Today. Vietnam and China accounted for roughly 60% of the imports, the report found.
In recent months, Trump has placed country-specific tariffs on the top furniture exporters. Products from Vietnam face a 20% tariff, for instance, while Chinese imports encounter a 30% levy.
The overall price of furniture has gone up 4.7% since August 2024, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Prices for living room and dining room furniture have climbed 9.5%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Furniture prices soared 1.4% over three months ending in June, when compared to the previous three-month period, the government’s personal consumption expenditure index shows.
“This is a big jump,” Jason Miller, a professor of supply chain management at Michigan State University, told ABC News in an August interview, noting the index had largely declined between the mid-1990s and the mid-2010s. “It’s difficult to see many positives from a consumer standpoint at the moment.”
(NEW YORK) — President Donald Trump over the weekend vowed to provide each American a $2,000 dividend to be distributed from what he said was tariff revenue.
“A dividend of at least $2000 a person (not including high income people!) will be paid to everyone,” the president wrote on social media Sunday, in part.
Within hours, however, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent cast doubt on the plan, saying the payout could merely refer to tax savings enshrined by Trump’s signature domestic spending measure.
A tariff dividend may come “in lots of forms,” Bessent told ABC News’ “This Week” on Sunday, adding that he had not spoken with Trump about the proposal.
The idea of a potential tariff dividend – reminiscent of pandemic-era stimulus checks – has raised questions about who would qualify and what to make of the Trump administration’s mixed signals about the proposal. Some economists questioned whether the dividend is achievable with available tariff funds.
Here’s what to know about the proposed $2,000 tariff dividends.
What is a dividend?
The term “dividend” typically describes a payout to individual shareholders, funded by a company’s profits.
In this case, the concept functions in a similar fashion, indicating payouts to Americans that are funded by tax raised by Trump’s far-reaching tariffs.
The proposal mirrors the three stimulus checks mailed to Americans during the pandemic, two of which were authorized by Trump. Those three payments totaled as much as $3,200 per tax filer, as well as $2,500 per child, according to the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee, a watchdog established by Congress.
What did Trump say about a potential $2,000 tariff dividend?
Trump announced the policy proposal in a brief message on social media on Sunday morning, focused on tariff-related tax revenue.
“People that are against Tariffs are FOOLS! We are now the Richest, Most Respected Country In the World, With Almost No Inflation, and A Record Stock Market Price. 401k’s are Highest EVER,” the president wrote. “A dividend of at least $2000 a person (not including high income people!) will be paid to everyone.”
The message did not specify who would qualify for the payout or how the policy would operate.
Who would qualify for the $2,000 dividend?
It is not clear who would qualify for the payout, though Trump said the measure would exclude “high income people.”
The pandemic-era stimulus checks enacted by Trump were made available to individuals bringing in as much as $75,000 per year and couples earning up to $150,000. Beyond those benchmarks, higher earners were eligible for smaller payments.
Last year, median U.S. household income was $83,730, the Census Bureau found.
Did Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent cast doubt on the dividend checks?
Hours after Trump’s announcement, Treasury Secretary Bessent appeared to throw cold water on the likelihood of tariff-related dividend checks.
On Sunday, Bessent suggested the $2,000 savings may instead be rooted in tax cuts previously enshrined by Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill legislation, which he signed into law on July 4.
“It could be just the tax decreases that we are seeing on the president’s agenda. No tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security, deductibility on auto loans. Those are substantial deductions that are being financed in the tax bill,” Bessent told ABC News’ “This Week” Sunday.
“The real goal of tariffs is to rebalance trade and make it more fair,” Bessent added.
The dueling remarks from Trump and Bessent come days after the Supreme Court heard arguments about whether a president has the constitutional authority to unilaterally levy tariffs. Arguing on behalf of the Trump administration, Solicitor General John Sauer downplayed the revenue-raising component of the policy, saying the tariffs do not encroach upon the taxing power afforded to Congress under the Constitution.
“The fact that [the tariffs] raise revenue is only incidental,” Sauer told the justices.
Has the U.S. raised enough tariff revenue to fund $2,000 checks?
If Trump were to make the dividend payments available to anyone earning $100,000 or less, the policy would reach about 150 million Americans, amounting to roughly $300 billion in dividends, Erica York, a policy expert at the Tax Foundation, said in a post on X.
As of Sept. 30, the federal government had generated $195 billion in tariff-related revenue, according to the Treasury Department.
By that math, the estimated $300 billion cost of the dividend check proposal would far exceed the amount of currently available tariff revenue.
When factoring in only revenue generated by Trump’s new levies and deducting some negative budgetary impact from those policies, York estimated net tariff revenues of only $90 billion, falling even shorter of the $300 billion required.
Moreover, depending on how the Supreme Court may rule regarding Trump’s legal authority to levy tariffs, the White House may be forced to return tens of billions of dollars in revenue to importers who paid the tax, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget found.
In theory, however, the Trump administration could promise to pay the dividend from anticipated tariff revenue. The Treasury Department has forecast $3 trillion in tariff revenue over the next decade. Should the Trump administration choose that route, the dividend payments would add the federal debt, which currently stands at over $38 trillion, according to the Treasury Department.
