How Donald Trump Has Lowered the Wages of American Workers

On June 6, 2025, Donald Trump’s White House staff issued an upbeat statement proclaiming that what it called the “Trump Effect” was creating “higher pay for American workers.”  The reality, though, is that Trump, during his second term in office, has deliberately reduced the wages of millions of workers and, despite substantial inflation, frozen the wages of millions more.

In March 2025, kicking off his assault on workers’ wages, Trump read more

Donald Trump’s Assault on the Wages of American Workers

Although Donald Trump, as president, proclaimed in his 2020 State of the Union address that he had produced a “blue-collar boom” in workers’ wages, the reality was quite different.  Using his control of the executive branch of the U.S. government, Trump repeatedly undermined the wages of American workers by blocking raises and imposing wage reductions.

Only the preceding year, Trump derailed vital wage legislation.  In July 2019―with the pathetically low federal minimum wage stuck at read more

If Farmworkers Are “Essential,” Why Are They Treated So Badly?

On March 19, 2020, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, spurred to action by the coronavirus pandemic, issued a memorandum that identified the nation’s 2.5 million farmworkers as “essential” workers.  Soon thereafter, agribusinesses began distributing formal letters to their farm laborers, also declaring that that they were “essential.”

Of course, it shouldn’t have required a government-business effort to establish this point.  Without farmworkers, there is no food.  And the read more