Over 716,000 Plant Workers in the US Have Lost Their Jobs Under Trump
August 22nd 2019
Abandoned steel production plant (Edwin van Buuringen)
By Oliver Willis
Trump has long claimed that he and his policies would be a boon to workers, especially blue-collar ones. But since he became president, over 716,000 American workers have received pink slips from their employers as jobs are eliminated and plants close.
“716,341 workers have been notified of plant closings and layoffs,” American Bridge 21st Century said in a statement on Wednesday, citing their analysis of the publicly available information.
The numbers may actually be worse, since several states — Arkansas, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota, and Wyoming — haven’t provided data.
The group also noted that 183,526 workers have had their jobs outsourced since Trump took office, based on information from Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) filings between 2017 and 2019. TAA is a federal program that was established under President Barack Obama to give aid to workers who lost jobs or wages due to increased imports.
Layoff notifications were high in states pivotal to the presidential election. These include Michigan (23,388 workers), Wisconsin (24,104 workers), Pennsylvania (31,128 workers) and Florida (35,462 workers).
From early in his presidency, Trump has insisted that he is bringing back these sorts of jobs.
Before he was sworn in, he orchestrated a sweetheart deal for Carrier in Indiana, where the company was awarded $7 million in tax breaks purportedly in exchange for saving over 1,000 jobs from outsourcing. Despite Trump’s proclamations, the company ended up sending most of the jobs out of the state while taxpayers were left holding the bill.
Trump claimed in 2018 that GM was building a plant in Detroit, thanks to him, but the story was simply made up.
Trump and then-Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican, made a big show of welcoming Foxconn to the state, arranging a massive giveaway to the company in exchange for what Trump said would be “the eighth wonder of the world.” Instead, the deal went awry and the thousands of promised jobs will not ever materialize.
Companies with thousands of employees, like GM, have lost money as a result of Trump’s trade war. After the auto manufacturer attributed the loss of a $1 billion to Trump’s policy, they announced last November that they would cut 14,700 jobs.
Even when companies have added workers, it has backfired on Trump. In March, he touted Ford’s investment in a Chicago-based facility, noting, “Companies are pouring back into the United States.” But Ford had made the announcement about the facility back in January 2017, before Trump was inaugurated.
In private, Trump administration officials are admitting that a recession could be coming as economists issue warnings, with many of them laying considerable blame on Trump’s trade war.
The jobs Trump has promised are not coming back, and the losses on his watch are devastating thousands of families.
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