Former Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su: “It’s clear that American workers are, at best, casualties in Donald Trump’s chaotic, shrinking economy, and more often, the direct targets of his administration’s relentless attacks.”
Today, former acting Labor Secretary Julie Su, former White House Special Assistant to the President for Economic Policy Michael Negron, New Mexico State Treasurer Laura M. Montoya, and Maryland State Delegate Adrian Boafo participated in a press call hosted by Defend America Action to lay out how Donald Trump, his administration, and MAGA Republicans in Congress are wrecking the U.S. economy, to the detriment of American families and their pocketbooks.
In less than eight months, Trump has driven the economy off a cliff, and the results have been higher costs across the board, a tanking job market, and rising jobless claims. The speakers highlighted how Trump and MAGA Republicans’ policies have resulted in our anemic economy, and how they’re pushing Americans to the brink.
“Donald Trump and his administration insist that they are on the side of American workers, but given the anemic jobs numbers overall, along with this administration’s agenda of wage cuts, reversal of safety protections for our nation’s mine workers and workers who work under the heat, their chaotic tariff regime, their gutting of enforcement agencies like the Department of Labor and the National Labor Relations Board, it’s clear that American workers are, at best, casualties in Donald Trump’s chaotic, shrinking economy, and more often, the direct targets of his administration’s relentless attacks,” said former acting Labor Secretary Julie Su.
“[Trump] said he would lower the cost of living on day one of his administration. But what we’re instead seeing is a noteworthy slowdown in the jobs market and spiking inflation,” said former White House Special Assistant to the President for Economic Policy Michael Negron. “Both of these trends are directly attributable to the president, not only due to the policy choices he is making, but also due to the chaotic way in which his administration makes those choices, and the way in which they roll them out, his approach has resulted in a ‘Trump Turbulence Tax’ where the President’s erratic approach to governance creates its own costs for consumers and for businesses. And the result is prices are up, job growth is down, and confidence about the future has plummeted.”
“We’re in a deeply unsettling moment in American history where, for perhaps the first time, a President’s economic policies appear deliberately engineered to trigger economic turmoil and undermine public trust in independent institutions, elected officials, and appointees,” said New Mexico State Treasurer Laura M. Montoya. “At the same time, the dollar has plunged over 10%, further eroding purchasing power and reducing affordability. The effects of Trump’s failures are not just being felt in the markets. It’s showing up in Americans’ daily lives. Trump’s sweeping tariffs are strangling American small businesses. Small businesses are often left with no choice but to ramp up prices and risk losing customers, let go of staff, or absorb the shock and risk profit loss or potential closure or bankruptcy. Not to mention America’s longstanding trade partners now hesitate to engage with us, eroding American influence, credibility and status as a leading global power.”
“Under the President’s second term, Maryland has faced the largest job loss of any state in the nation. Since January alone, we’ve lost 12,700 federal jobs. In June, we experienced the single largest month drop in nearly three decades – about 3,500 federal jobs gone in literally just one month,” said Maryland State Delegate Adrian Boafo. “And our state’s Board of Revenue estimates that as many as 30,000 jobs, 30,000 workers, in particular in Maryland will lose their jobs by the end of the year. And for me, these are not just numbers on the page. They represent the families that I work for, the constituents that I work for, not just in Prince George’s County, but across Southern Maryland. About 229,000 Marylanders work for the federal government, and nearly a quarter of them live right here in Prince George’s County. These are my neighbors, my constituents.”
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