After completing his first 100 days in office, Donald Trump has set a record for having the lowest public approval rating for a newly elected president in 80 years. This comes after Trump has issued more than 140 executive orders that dismantled federal agencies, fired tens of thousands of government workers, slashed congressionally-approved budgets for health care research, education, foreign aid and disrupted Social Security system operations. At the same time, Trump and his family are engaged in blatant acts of corruption and unprecedented ethics violations, the latest being accepting Qatar’s gift of a luxury 747 jet worth $400 million to be used as America’s Air Force One presidential plane.
Trump’s imposition of unprecedented tariffs on nations around the world has wreaked havoc on the stock and bond markets, severely weakened the U.S. dollar and ramped up inflation that’s caused many economists to predict a damaging recession. Growing concern about the economy has seen consumer confidence fall to a 12-year low.
A new report from the Economic Policy Institute identifies 100 ways Trump has hurt working people and the economy in the first 100 days of his administration. The report titled, “100 Days, 100 Ways Trump Has Hurt Workers,” examines how the Trump regime’s policies have undermined workers’ wages and working conditions, damaged economic growth and workers’ purchasing power. Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Margaret Poydock, a senior policy analyst at EPI, who summarizes the findings of the report she co-authored.
MARGARET POYDOCK: Throughout our report, we kind of have three pillars that we cover. The first is how the Trump administration has undermined workers’ wages and working conditions. The second is how the Trump administration has damaged economic growth and workers’ purchasing power. And then finally, we focus on how the Trump administration has unleashed chaos and inefficiency in the public sector and the federal workforce.
SCOTT HARRIS: So in regards to the first section there on wages and working conditions, maybe you can give us some examples that fit under that particular topic in terms of Trump administration actions.
MARGARET POYDOCK: One example is in the first month, President Trump issued an executive order that rescinded a Biden executive order that raised the minimum wage for federal contract workers to $15 an hour. So now that President Trump has rescinded that order, it’s kind of unclear what the required minimum wage is for federal contract workers. This largely impacts workers who are in the federal government that are maybe are janitors or service workers or cashiers. And so it’s kind of unclear what the current minimum wage is for those contract workers right now.
I will say another example of working conditions that has been impacted is President Trump has issued an executive order that has stripped the collective bargaining rights for more than a million federal workers. Fortunately, that has been temporarily blocked in the court as the case has been legally challenged by federal worker unions. But those are just some examples of how the Trump administration has undermined workers’ wages and working conditions.
SCOTT HARRIS: Margaret, one of the other sections in this report talks about economic growth. You want to talk a little bit about the ways in which the Trump administration decisions — and I’m sure tariffs is going to come up here? And every day it’s a new story.
But tell us a little bit about economic growth and how that has impacted workers and their families.
MARGARET POYDOCK: Like you’ve mentioned, one of the actions that we mentioned is the imposed extremely broad tariffs that the Trump administration has imposed on all countries at this point. And they’re slowly reaching deals. But the unknown of the impacts of those tariffs have had impacts on our economy.
There’s also a lot of actions that have been related to immigration and those who are able to legally work in the United States. And President Trump has issued several executive actions that have rolled back or halted some temporary status for immigrant workers. And that is going to impact our economy, too, because immigrant workers provide purchasing power. They are buying goods and services. A lot of them are paying into our tax system as well. So when we remove their status, they are not legally in the country. They will potentially have to leave. And so that definitely impacts our economy and our communities as well.
SCOTT HARRIS: So I did want to get into the response. There are federal workers unions that are fighting back. There are a number of states’ attorneys general that are filing lawsuits against some of these changes and executive orders. Maybe you could talk a little bit about the pushback and what the Trump administration has been doing flying in the face of these checks and balances in the Constitution.
MARGARET POYDOCK: I would say one of the main drivers of opposition to the Trump administration right now are unions — federal unions — but also just unions in general. And they are part of the reason why some of these actions are being halted right now as the courts are currently reviewing the cases. For instance, I know we talked a little briefly about the reduction of workforce, but as of last week, there’s a case with the American Federation for Government Employees and several other unions, cities and nonprofits that have a case against the executive order that is reducing the federal workforce.
And, as of Friday, a judge has temporarily blocked the Trump administration from implementing these reductions in force. So unions are a big part of kind of the checks and balances at this point to challenge the Trump administration. But I also would say a lot of these federal workers, too, a lot of them have has made it harder for the Trump administration to implement some changes as speedy as they want them to. So they also are very valuable in making sure that President Trump and his appointees are not just unilaterally making these changes at this time.
For more information, visit the Economic Policy Institute at epi.org.
Listen to Scott Harris’ in-depth interview with Margaret Poydock (16:15) and see more articles and opinion pieces in the related links section of this page. For periodic updates on the Trump authoritarian playbook, subscribe here to our Between The Lines Radio Newsmagazine Substack newsletter to get updates to our “Hey AmeriKKKa, It’s Not Normal” compilation.
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