Tonight, you won’t hear Donald Trump tell the truth about his record on job creation, labor, or the economy. That’s because he left office as the worst jobs president of all time.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a record 20.5 million people abruptly lost their jobs in April 2020 as businesses closed or severely reduced operations to try to limit the spread of COVID-19 – something the Trump administration failed to do.
A decade of employment gains vanished in a single month under Trump, nearly double the jobs lost during the entire 2007-2009 financial crisis. Faced with a public health crisis in the final months of his presidency, Trump failed to coordinate an adequate response to keep Americans safe and keep the economy open.
Trump’s failure to address the pandemic sent U.S. unemployment up to 14.7% in April 2020. According to the Associated Press at the time, depending on the calculation method, the true unemployment rate stood “at 23.6%, not far from the Depression peak of nearly 25%.”
It took a historic investment by the Biden-Harris administration to recover all the jobs lost during the pandemic and at a rate faster than that of the three most recent prior recession recovery periods.
Trump’s record supporting labor rights was a disaster during his four years in office.
As president, Trump appointed the known anti-labor figure, Peter Robb, as his general counsel to the NLRB. Before the Trump administration, Robb “spent most of his career representing employers.”
Trump appointed a majority of the members of the NLRB, who limited who could be in a collective bargaining unit, allowed businesses to ban workers from using company email for union and organizing purposes, lowered the standard to remove an existing union, and made it easier for employers to classify workers as independent contractors.
Trump’s Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia spent his career arguing on behalf of large corporations in labor disputes, not workers. The Labor Department allowed 184,888 jobs to be shipped overseas during the first 3.5 years of the Trump administration.
Trump proposed moving auto production out of Michigan to communities where wages were lower in order to exploit workers.
On multiple occasions, Trump has expressed a desire to slash the Social Security and Medicare benefits that union workers rely on.
“There is no question the American economy is better off today than under the Trump administration when we hemorrhaged jobs and put big corporations ahead of the American worker,” said Brandon Weathersby, American Bridge’s presidential communications director. “When it mattered most, Trump’s chief concern was himself and rich corporate bosses. He failed to protect American workers and keep the doors open for businesses on Main Street. Voters have no reason to believe that Trump won’t put himself and his cigar-chomping rich friends first — and fail them yet again.”
Published: Sep 10, 2024