Skip to main content
Press Releases

THE BIG UGLY BUST

By April 14, 2026No Comments

Republicans Promised Their Tax Giveaway Would Supercharge the Economy – Nine Months Later, The Opposite Has Happened


When Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act on July 4, 2025, Republicans promised it would be an economic rocket ship. The Tax Foundation, a right-leaning group that supported the bill, projected it would create 938,000 jobs, boost GDP by 1.2%, and raise wages by 0.4%. Nine months later Republicans are preparing a
pointless show vote to pat themselves on the back, but the Trump economy has broken their promises on every count:

 

🐢GDP growth slowed sharply. 

📉2025 was the worst non-recession year for job creation since 2003. 

⬆️Inflation is on the rise again. 

💵Real wages for working people are up less than one percent over a full year while billionaires pocket trillions in tax breaks. 

 

Here’s what actually happened since the Trump tax bill was signed: 

 

  • THE BILL WAS SUPPOSED TO SUPERCHARGE GROWTH. INSTEAD, GROWTH SLOWED AND IS STILL SLOWING. When Trump signed the bill, GDP was growing at 4.3% annualized in Q3 2025. Within one quarter it cratered to just 0.5% and full-year 2025 growth fell to 2.1%, well below the 2.8% recorded in 2024 before the bill passed.
    • EY economists now project GDP will slow to 1.6% by Q4 2026 — half the pace of 2024.
    • Penn Wharton’s Budget Model projects the bill will lower GDP by 4.6% over 30 years.
  • TRUMP’S TAX BILL WAS SUPPOSED TO CREATE ALMOST A MILLION JOBS. INSTEAD, 2025 WAS THE WEAKEST NON-RECESSION YEAR FOR JOB CREATION SINCE 2003. Only 181,000 jobs were added in 2025, the worst annual performance since 2003, excluding recession years. The manufacturing sector, which was supposed to be boosted the most by the tax bill, lost 108,000 jobs instead.
    • Unemployment rose from 4.1% at signing to 4.3% in March 2026. 
  • INFLATION IS HIGHER TODAY THAN THE DAY TRUMP SIGNED THE BIG UGLY BILL. When Trump signed the OBBBA on July 4, 2025, inflation was 2.7%. Today it’s 3.3%, the highest level since May 2024. The Fed’s preferred inflation gauge has risen at an excessive pace every month of 2026, driven by Trump’s tariffs, and the war with Iran. 

 

  • WAGES: FLAT FOR WORKERS, BONANZA FOR BILLIONAIRES. Real average hourly earnings rose just 0.3% from March 2025 to March 2026. For blue-collar and service workers (production and nonsupervisory employees) — the exact workers Republicans said the bill was designed to help — real wages rose just 0.1% over the same year.
    • In March 2026 alone, real weekly earnings fell 0.9% as the Iran-war inflation surge devoured any nominal gains.
    • While working families gained pennies or lost ground, the bill handed people with incomes over $500,000 a tax break worth $1.4 trillion. According to CBPP, 1.2 million millionaire households received more in tax cuts than 127 million households earning under $100,000.

###