A Labor Day reminder that regulatory issues are worker issues. Thanks to the Trump administration's regulatory actions, workers have seen reduced wages and retirement savings. Trump says he is cutting "red tape," but really he is cutting workers' livelihoods. /1
Trump secretly gave middle-class workers a pay cut by abandoning overtime protections that ensure people get paid for the hours they work. The result: an annual $1.2 billion pay cut for American workers. /2
americanprogress.org/issues/economy…
americanprogress.org/issues/economy…
Trump also abandoned a rule that keeps financial advisors from cheating people out of their retirement savings. Financial advisors with conflicts of interest cost people $17 billion a year in retirement savings. /3
epi.org/publication/he…
epi.org/publication/he…
Just last week, Trump cut pay by roughly $3 billion for nearly 2 million middle-class federal workers across the country, including VA nurses and firefighters. Close to a third of the federal workers seeing this pay cut are veterans. /4
politico.com/story/2018/08/…
politico.com/story/2018/08/…
At the same time, however, Trump said he is considering using regulatory authority to give the wealthy another $100 billion tax cut (even though doing so would be illegal). /5
Talk of "free markets v. regs" misses the point. Sometimes the Trump Admin wants more regs and sometimes they want fewer.
The real question is who writes the regs and who benefits from them. In this administration the answer to both Qs is the wealthy and well-connected. /6
The real question is who writes the regs and who benefits from them. In this administration the answer to both Qs is the wealthy and well-connected. /6
