Reprinted from The American Prospect by Thea Lee on September 26, 2020.
During the 2016 presidential campaign, candidate Donald Trump famously pledged: “The jobs, incomes, and security of the American worker will always be my first priority.”
But at every opportunity—whether in appointing pro-corporate, anti-worker nominees to the courts, key agencies and positions; using his executive power; or spearheading legislation—President Trump’s track record has been exactly the opposite. Trump and his appointees have consistently and aggressively:
- adopted policies that take money out of workers’ pockets;
- undermined workers’ ability to bargain together for better pay and working conditions;
- and failed to protect workers’ health and safety on the job, most disastrously during the COVID-19 pandemic.
There are so many examples of Trump’s anti-worker priorities, from tax policies to job losses resulting from his pandemic blunders, that they fill a whole new report from the Economic Policy Institute, where I serve as president. Our report capped the list of ways the Trump administration has hurt workers at 50—because of space limitations. …
