Tariff Study Puts 9,100 Indiana Jobs Lost, and Section 232 Is Still Fully in Effect

The Midwest Economic Policy Institute and the University of Illinois released a study on July 22 estimating approximately 9,100 Indiana manufacturing jobs lost to 2025 tariffs, concentrated in transportation equipment where Canadian and Mexican supply chains run deepest. The average Midwest household absorbed more than $2,000 in added costs last year, roughly 55% above the national average. Ball State economist Michael Hicks named Indiana one of the three most at-risk states in the region.

The headline rollback obscures the part that hits your P&L. The Supreme Court's IEEPA ruling did not touch Section 232, steel and aluminum tariffs remain fully in effect, and Indiana hot-rolled coil prices surged 31% after they took effect, per S&P Global. Mills capture that on the top line; downstream fabricators absorb it as input cost. A new proposed 50% tariff on Canadian imports, signed by Presidential Proclamation on July 20, was issued under non-IEEPA authority, so the reasoning that invalidated the earlier tariffs likely does not apply. Canada is Indiana's top trading partner. The $166 billion importer refund pool flows to large importers, not to the manufacturers who ate the downstream cost, and Goldman Sachs analysts have warned that companies will not lower prices anywhere near as fast as they raised them.

Indiana's Only Workforce Pell Manufacturing Program Won't Enroll Until January 2027

Indiana has exactly one manufacturing-sector Workforce Pell program in the pipeline, and it will not enroll its first Pell-funded students until January 2027, after being stretched from four weeks to ten weeks purely to meet program qualification thresholds. If your 2027 hiring plan assumes a federal training pipeline delivering skilled operators, that assumption does not hold for at least eighteen months. Budget for internal training and journeyman-level poaching costs instead.

Bloch Quantum Hub Anchors in Chicago, Not Northwest Indiana

The Bloch Quantum Tech Hub carries a $30 million federal award with Lake County and Northwest Indiana inside the designated region, but the anchor tenants and physical infrastructure sit in Chicago. Initial vendor qualification and proximity relationships will form on the Illinois side first. NWI operators who wait for Indiana-side RFPs will be qualifying into a supply base that is already established, which is a materially harder sell than getting into the first cohort.