Labor
2024
2024-07-24 This marked the date that the federal minimum wage of 7.25 had been stuck at that rate for 15 years.
https://www.npr.org/2024/07/24/nx-s1-5050573/federal-minimum-wage-increase-15-year-anniversary
https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/minimum-wage/history
https://www.epi.org/publication/rtwa-2025-impact-fact-sheet/
https://www.nelp.org/minimum-wage-rises-in-some-states-as-workers-struggle-with-basic-costs/
https://www.upjohn.org/research-highlights/does-increasing-minimum-wage-lead-higher-prices
2024-09-05 During a campaign rally in Phoenix Arizona, JD Vance said, “…There is a logic to what the Democrats are trying to do. It’s disgusting, but there’s a logic to it. They want illegal aliens to steal everybody’s job, and now they want illegal aliens to steal everybody’s vote.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtRPLCso0Sw
2025 January
2025-01-20 DOGE began making indiscriminate cuts to federal workers for the next 18 months, totaling roughly 271,000 positions up until DOGE was dismantled.
https://usafacts.org/articles/what-is-going-on-with-doge/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Department_of_Government_Efficiency
2025-01-20 Page 588 of Project 2025 cuts overtime protections for American workers.
https://static.heritage.org/project2025/2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf
https://bacweb.org/bac-journal/project-2025-get-facts
https://nationalpartnership.org/report/theyre-coming-for-your-overtime-pay/
2025-01-20 Portions of Project 2025 undermine or hinder union rights, including giving corporations the right to “union bust” on page 602.
https://static.heritage.org/project2025/2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf
https://betterinaunion.org/project-2025
https://betterinaunion.org/system/files/2024-06/2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL_0.pdf#page=634
2025-01-20 Page 697 of Project 2025 outlines a plan to tax worker benefits.
https://static.heritage.org/project2025/2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf
https://betterinaunion.org/project-2025
2025-01-20 Trump rescinded Executive Order 13999 Protecting Worker Health and Safety. This is very important, because larger companies have historically cut corners at the expense of worker safety. For example, Amazon had received backlash since at least 2011 for allowing warehouses to overheat, and in 2022 Amazon installed air conditioning in warehouses only AFTER one of their employees died from heat exhaustion. In 2024, OSHA found that the company still had not complied with AC installation and instead tried to mitigate heat exhaustion with an “extra 5 minutes” to employee work breaks.
https://www.geekwire.com/2011/amazon-feeling-heat-warehouse-allegations-issues-response/
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/carolineodonovan/amazon-worker-protests-chicago-heat-wave
2025-01-20 Trump rescinded Executive Order 14003 Protecting the Federal Workforce.
2025-01-20 Trump rescinded Executive Order 14052 Implementation of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
2025-01-20 Trump rescinded Executive Order 14055 Nondisplacement of Qualified Workers Under Service Contracts.
2025-01-20 Trump rescinded Executive Order 14057 Catalyzing Clean Energy Industries and Jobs Through Federal Sustainability.
2025-01-20 Trump rescinded Executive Order 14069 Advancing Economy, Efficiency, and Effectiveness in Federal Contracting by Promoting Pay Equity and Transparency.
2025 March
2025-03-27 Trump signed executive order 14251 “Exclusions from Federal Labor Management Relations Programs”, which removed collective bargaining rights for more than 40 federal agencies.
https://news.va.gov/press-room/va-terminates-union-contracts-for-most-bargaining-unit-employees/
2025 May
2025-05-20 (for context – because most low wage workers are near, at or below the poverty line) The Trump administration announced plans to pass a lackluster “No Tax For Tips” bill. The bill ended up being temporary in nature, featured an income cap up to an unlivable $25,000 per year, and excluded payroll and state taxes. Altogether the bill offered little or no benefit to low-wage workers.
https://www.epi.org/publication/everything-you-need-to-know-about-no-tax-on-tips/
https://bipartisanpolicy.org/explainer/how-does-no-tax-on-tips-work-in-the-one-big-beautiful-bill/
https://itep.org/conforming-to-the-no-tax-on-tips-gimmick-just-got-riskier-and-costlier-for-states/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_tax_on_tips
2025 June
2025-06-24 The Trump administration scrambled to rehire key federal workers after the sweeping and unscrupulous DOGE firings. Estimates suggest the actions by DOGE between firings and rehiring had cost American taxpayers roughly $135B.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/24/politics/doge-fired-workers-rehired
2025 August
2025-08-01 Even after Trump fired Bureau of Labor Statistics Chief Erika McEntarfer, the job market data still showed a heavy decline. Trump nominated Heritage Foundation’s E.J. Antoni to replace McEntarfer.
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/01/us-job-market-jobs-report-july-2025.html
2025-08-05 Trump stated that DOGE cuts would be “surgical”. Instead, the Trump administration made indiscriminate cuts to a wide chunk of agricultural, educational, scientific, research, environmental, and civil engineering services designed to help millions of Americans thrive. After Elon Musk left DOGE, the Trump administration continued to make slashing cuts across the board, primarily in Democrat-led cities as a retaliatory measure.
https://www.americanprogress.org/article/doge-cuts-by-city-state-and-congressional-district/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_federal_agencies_targeted_by_DOGE
2025 September
2025-09-09 Job market reports showed that the U.S. added one million fewer jobs than previously reported.
2025-09-19 Trump signed an executive order imposing a $100K fee for H1B1 visas. This visa would normally allow highly skilled workers to enter the country’s tech industry; now it will only be accessible to those with wealth.
https://www.uscis.gov/newsroom/alerts/h-1b-faq
2025-09-24 The Trump administration continued to rehire many federal workers formerly let go by DOGE but only gave them until the end of October to return. The rehiring would cost taxpayers. The fact that the Trump administration had to rehire crucial workers back to federal positions goes against their previous claim August 5th that their firings would be done with “surgical precision”.
2025 October Shutdown
This will have its own section under Economy-Labor-Poverty called “Shutdowns”
So anything related to shutdowns will be there, including weaponizing SNAP benefits and healthcare, and violating the Hatch Act.
2025 November
2025-11-21 The Tyson Foods company announced it would close the long-time Lexington Nebraska beef plant around January 2026, leaving roughly 3200 people out of a job. Also noteworthy, it was reported that this closure would boost Tyson stocks by 6%.
https://cap.unl.edu/news/understanding-tyson-lexington-plant-closure-what-it-means-cattle-producers/
https://www.producer.com/livestock/tyson-to-close-beef-plant-as-supplies-dwindle/
2025 December
2025-12-03 Layoff announcements hit a record high of 1.1 million since 2020 when Trump was last president.
https://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/layoffs-highest-since-pandemic-challenger-rcna247351
2025-12-31 Under Trump the US economy added 181,000 jobs in all of 2025. For comparison, it added 1.46 million jobs in 2024 under Biden.
https://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/january-jobs-revisions-trump-rcna258398
2026 January
2026-01-28 Amazon’s Jeff Bezos forked over $75M to fund a documentary about Melania Trump, and in the same month laid off 16,000 Amazon workers.
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/jan/28/melania-trump-documentary-amazon-release
2026 February
2026-02-03 The Washington Post laid off a third of their staff.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwyn05d1494o
https://www.npr.org/2026/02/04/nx-s1-5699328/washington-post-layoffs-jobs-bezos
2026-02-05 The Trump administration advanced a plan to strip job protections from federal workers by reclassifying them under Schedule F.
https://www.npr.org/2026/02/06/nx-s1-5704171/trump-fire-federal-employees-schedule-f
https://www.nteu.org/schedulef
2026-02-28 The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a sharp drop of over 92,000 jobs in February 2026 with an unemployment rate of 4.4%.
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/mar/06/february-jobs-report
https://www.marketwatch.com/livecoverage/february-2026-jobs-report-today
2026 March
2026-03-16 Leaked DOGE deposition videos went viral, revealing that DOGE employees used OpenAI’s ChatGPT to determine which agencies and grants to cut, starting with any that referenced DEI. They used AI to indiscriminately take jobs away from dedicated and hard-working people.
https://fortune.com/2026/03/16/doge-employee-deposition-lawsuit-federal-deficit-elon-musk-spending/
https://abcnews.com/Politics/2-doge-staffers-regrets-people-losing-income-reduce/story?id=131050170
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/13/nyregion/doge-depositions-musk-lawsuit.html