| Trump is no friend of the working class. |
| Trump’s major legislative achievement is a tax cut that mainly benefits corporations — whose tax payments have fallen off a cliff — and has done nothing at all to raise wages. The tax plan does so little for ordinary Americans that Republicans have stopped campaigning on it. Yet the administration is floating the (probably illegal) idea of using executive action to cut taxes on the rich by an extra $100 billion.
There’s also health policy, where Trump, having failed to repeal Obamacare — which would have been a huge blow to working families — has engaged instead in a campaign of sabotage that has probably raised premiums by almost 20 percent relative to what they would have been otherwise. Inevitably, the burden of these higher premiums falls most heavily on families earning just a bit too much to be eligible for subsidies, that is, the upper part of the working class. And then there’s labor policy, where the Trump administration has moved on multiple fronts to do away with regulations that had protected workers from exploitation, injury and more. But immediate policy doesn’t tell the whole story. You also want to look at Trump’s appointments. When it comes to policies that affect workers, Trump has created a team of cronies: Almost every important position has gone to a lobbyist or someone with strong financial connections to industry. Labor interests have received no representation at all. Furthermore, the Trumpian trade war is being carried out in a way that produces maximum harm to U.S. workers in return for minimum benefits. Source: "Stop Calling Trump a Populist" by Paul Krugman - NY Times - Aug. 2, 2018 {T}he United States has been adding jobs since well before Mr. Trump took office. And the rate of job growth during Mr. Trump’s first 19 months in office (194,000 jobs per month) is slightly less than the rate at which jobs were added during Mr. Obama’s final 19 months (205,000 per month). So the good news on jobs is the same good news Americans have been hearing for the last three years. After adjusting for inflation, wages have barely increased during the Trump presidency. When July’s Consumer Price Index is reported next week, it is likely to show that whatever modest increase workers are getting in their wages continues to be eaten up by rising prices. {T}he Trump administration’s policies have done little for the average worker. Mr. Trump’s tax cut delivered 84 percent of its benefits to business and to individuals with incomes above $75,000 a year. A typical middle-income worker will get a $930 reduction in his taxes this year, half of which will be consumed by higher gasoline prices. Source: "Trump’s Economic Claims Are Overblown" - By Steven Rattner - NY Times - 8/3/18 |
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