Hangers await clothes at Dry Clean City of Vestavia Hills, Ala. Tariffs on Chinese-made hangers are raising hanger prices. Cleaners are trying to avoid price hikes. (Photo by Tamika Moore)

The U.S. government last month imposed tariffs on Chinese hangers after a Leeds hanger company complained the Chinese were selling hangers below cost to try to kill U.S. manufacturers. As a result, a trade group said, hanger prices could double and rising costs will likely be passed along to consumers across the country.

Some dry cleaners are holding out as long as they can.

"I don't want to be the first to increase my prices,'' said John Mattioli, owner of Dry Clean City of Vestavia Hills.

Mattioli declined to say how much he pays per hanger, but said he expects to pay as much as 4 cents more for each because of tariffs. His shop charges $1.99 per item cleaned and has very narrow profit margins, he said, so he'll definitely be hurt.

"It's going to come out of our hide, that's for sure,'' he said.

Shops in New York City told the New York Post their hanger costs have increased from 4 cents to 10 cents per hanger, and customers are already paying more there. A national trade association representing dry cleaners said the tariffs will cost the typical small shop an additional $200 to $500 a week in hanger costs.

The increase in the cost of hangers is a result of a complaint filed last summer with the U.S. Department of Commerce by M&B Hangers in Leeds, one of the last domestic manufacturers of wire hangers.

M&B has already hired about 50 new workers, doubling the size of its operation, and plans to add a third shift, owner Milton Magnus said last week.

The company's complaint says Chinese manufacturers have been selling hangers for as much as two-thirds below cost, "dumping'' them in an attempt to kill off American competition. In October the government found that Chinese imports had increased from 773 million hangers in 2004 to nearly 3 billion last year because of the dumping and ruled in favor of M&B. On March 20 it imposed the tariffs.

Brittany Eck, a spokeswoman for the Department of Commerce, said most Chinese hanger manufacturers now face a 221 percent tariff, meaning the cost of their products in the United States has more than tripled. Some Chinese manufacturers face smaller tariffs.

Nora Nealis, executive director of the National Cleaners Association, said in some cases the prices paid by dry cleaners for hangers doubled within 24 hours of the new tariffs.

Mattioli said his supplier last week steered him away from Chinese hangers and toward hangers made by M&B. The supplier said the prices of Chinese hangers were up 84 percent and hangers from M&B were up more than 10 percent. Even with the 10 percent increase, the Alabama-made hangers are now cheaper than the Chinese ones, he said.

Nealis said it's not clear how many cleaners recycle hangers. Of the three types of hangers most commonly used by cleaners, only the plain wire version can be easily recycled, she said. It's much harder to reuse hangers with paper covers and cardboard tubes for hanging pants.

"But we've been encouraging them to think about recycling,'' she said.

(Stan Diel is a staff writer for the Birmingham (Ala.) News. He can be contacted at sdiel(at)bhamnews.com.)