An industry focused on death faces an existential crisis

For nearly a century, John Dioguardi’s family has been making custom headstones and other memorial markers at Rome Monument in western Pennsylvania. Recently, he’s wondered how much time his business has left.

Dioguardi has been trying to adapt for more than a decade as the rise in cremations has hurt demand for the traditional burial markers his business has become synonymous with. This year, they’ve been dealt another blow: President Donald Trump‘s broad and steep tariffs, which have driven up costs for granite coming to American graveyards from around the world.

“I hope this all works out,” Dioguardi said. “I have no idea if it will.”

Rome Monument is part of a fabric of small, family run companies that make memorialization products facing the dual challenges of levies and cremations. Members of the blue-collar industry are in a fight to survive the social, political and economic shifts throwing their livelihoods into a state of disruption. 

As Dioguardi watched the White House’s trade relationship with China fluctuate in recent months, he shifted two-thirds of his supply chain out of the Asian country. Most of it went to India, which has seen a relatively lower tariff rate for much of the year.

Dioguardi said bringing production to the U.S. would likely still be more expensive — even with new tariffs — due to higher labor costs. There’s another simple reason to look internationally: Some types of granite, like the multi-colored aurora found in India, come only from certain regions abroad.

“God gave the different parts of the world certain yummies,” Dioguardi said. “We have nothing like that in our country.”

Trump’s levies have altered the bottom lines in the industry, leaving businesses struggling with how to mitigate the additional costs.

In September 2024, Milano Monuments’ Jim Milano paid around 29% custom duties and taxes on a container coming in from China to his Cleveland-based business. A year later, that rate nearly doubled to 59%.

He’s talked with fellow memorial monument suppliers about adding an addendum to large orders telling buyers that the price could be later adjusted depending on if tariff rates move. For now, Milano said he and many peers are covering the tariffs out of pocket. He’s taken a pay cut as a result.

“There’s just so many crazy things that have come up in the last several years,” said Milano, whose business has been around for half of a century. “But this tariff thing has been like a gut punch.”

In recent months, Milano has found himself rushing to communicate with his ordering controller when he sees a headline about higher levies to ensure his containers hit the water before they would take effect.

Because the monument industry produces specialty products, it typically runs on lead times of several weeks or months. Importers can see significantly different levy rates if the White House adjusts its trade policy between when memorial products are first ordered by customers and the granite is actually shipped to the U.S.

“The uncertainty part is the hardest part we struggle with,” said Nathan Lange, president of Monument Builders of North America, a trade group representing hundreds of business with an average lifespan of more than seven decades.

Granite wholesalers have similarly needed to recalibrate their sales practices. At Kentucky-based PS Granite, operations chief Parthi Damo said they have delayed printing annual marketing materials for next year because they aren’t sure if tariff rates could change again, which would mean prices need to be adjusted. Damo said he may switch to making new documents every 60 days in case they need to keep updating prices.

Trump has argued that foreign countries or, in some cases, the companies importing their products should eat the tariffs. Data shows that businesses have largely absorbed cost increases in the short term.

But memorial creators said that their smaller margins and lower volumes make it tougher to cover the costs than it would be for large retailers. Because the businesses work with shoppers feeling emotions around death, industry members say they need to be especially sensitive when deciding whether to pass down costs to consumers.

“It’s hard,” Milano said. “We can’t go back to a grieving family and say, ‘You know what, we got to add an additional $1,000 to your family’s memorial to cover the tariffs.'”

Even before the tariffs ramped up, the industry was busy reorienting itself for a future with fewer traditional burials.

The U.S.’ five-year cremation rate has surged to more than 60% in 2024, up from under 40% a decade and a half prior, according to the Cremation Association of North America. The organization expects more than two out of every three bodies will be cremated in an average year between 2025 and 2029.

Dioguardi has considered expanding the work radius around his Pennsylvania headquarters to buoy demand for grave site products, a broader trend which he said has prompted a wave of acquisitions within the industry. Dioguardi and his peers have emphasized alternatives like pedestal memorials for people remembering a cremated loved one.

He’s also worked on less conventional monuments: Dioguardi recently helped a cemetery install a “rainbow bridge” memorial that contains the ashes of pets.

“Cremation has changed our business tremendously,” Dioguardi said. “It’s created new opportunities. It has closed some other doors.”

If monument builders need to raise prices to account for tariffs, Milano worries it could push more consumers to opt for cremations. Beyond granite, he said levies on production materials have also taken a bite out of profits.

To be sure, Canada’s monument industry is feeling the heat more intensely with a five-year cremation average expected to surpass 80%. Dioguardi said granite manufacturers he worked with based in America’s northern neighbor haven’t increased prices due to tariffs given the shrinking domestic demand.

Dioguardi said his family operation should be on solid ground for another decade, but he questions if it can exist in its current state beyond that. At the same time, the 75-year-old knows that the fate of the business is married in part to whether people want their loved ones to have any sort of memorialization.

When comparing the pyramids the Egyptians opted for to today’s trend of having ashes spread somewhere without a marker, Dioguardi isn’t exactly confident. Part of the challenge, he and other industry members say, is proving that any sort of memorial product is worth the investment.

“Forget about making the pyramid,” Dioguardi said. “I don’t even know if they want a pebble.”