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Trump for the working class..
#81
If you depend on shabby colleges and predatory lending to get ahead, as many working class people do, the Trump government isn't on your side:

Quote:The Education Department proposed a rules change Wednesday that would make it harder for students who were victims of predatory lending practices at for-profit colleges to get their loans forgiven. The proposed policy change continues the Trump administration’s goal of deregulating higher education and chipping away at protections for students. The new rules would make it harder for students to make use of what’s called “borrower defense,” a form of loan forgiveness that applies to students who were misled by their universities.
Betsy DeVos plans to make it harder for defrauded students to get debt relief – ThinkProgress
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#82
Quote:The Times had a good editorial on Kavanaugh’s anti-worker agenda, but by and large the news analyses I’ve seen focus on his apparently expansive views of presidential authority and privilege. I agree that these are important in the face of a lawless president with authoritarian instincts. But the business and labor issues shouldn’t be neglected. Kavanaugh is, to put it bluntly, an anti-worker radical, opposed to every effort to protect working families from fraud and mistreatment.

The most spectacular example is his opinion that Sea World owed no liability for a killer whale attack that killed one of its workers, because she should have known the risks. He has declared the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which helps control the financial fraud against working families that played a major role in the 2008 crisis, unconstitutional. He’s taken an extremely expansive view of the rights of business to suppress union organizing.
Opinion | Trump’s Supreme Betrayal - The New York Times
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#83
Quote:According to the jobs report that was released on Friday, average hourly earnings for American workers increased 2.7 percent from July 2017 to July 2018But that increase lags behind the increase in prices, which went up by 2.9 percent from June 2017 to June 2018, the most recent period for which prices data is available. That means that the economy Trump described on Tuesday as “the best economy in the history of our country” has actually left workers with less money in their pockets than they had a year ago.
Trump’s ‘best economy in history’ left workers with less money in their pockets than a year ago – ThinkProgress
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#84
Quote:Education Secretary Betsy DeVos moved Friday to end rules passed under the Obama administration that penalized for-profit colleges with a record of leaving graduates in crippling debt and with few job prospects. In a statement that appeared on the Education Department's website on Friday, the agency claimed the move was born out of an effort to treat all types of institutions "fairly." 

DeVos' plan to roll back the gainful employment rule was first reported last month. At that time, the agency refused to comment on the proposal until its completion and publication. DeVos has taken a number of steps to roll back other Obama-era rules targeting for-profit colleges, including dismantling a team dedicated to uncovering fraud at such institutions and reinstating a for-profit college accreditor despite her own staff's warnings that the organization did not meet federal standards.
DeVos ends Obama-era protections for students of for-profit colleges | TheHill

Quote:The federal government’s top consumer watchdog has decided it no longer needs to proactively supervise banks, credit card companies, and other lenders that deal with members of the military and their families to make sure they’re not committing fraud or abuse. Critics, baffled by the decision from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, say it will put service members in the claws of predatory lenders and put their careers and livelihoods — and potentially US national security — at risk. The bureau’s supervisory staff offices have typically conducted proactive checks that make sure lenders aren’t charging military members exorbitant interest rates, pushing them into forced arbitration, or otherwise not following guidelines outlined in the Military Lending Act, a 2006 law that protects active-duty military members and their families from financial fraud, predatory loans, and credit gouging. 

Members of the military are often disproportionately targeted by predatory lenders — financial institutions and other creditors who convince borrowers to accept unfair terms to get a loan, lie to them or coerce them, or give loans out to people they know won’t be able to pay them back. Service members are often young and financially inexperienced, with little to no credit. The Times notes that Department of Defense studies over the past decade have found that service members, their families, and veterans are four times as likely to be targeted by predatory lenders.
The Trump administration attacks financial protections for the military - Vox

Quote:About 40 staff members at the Office of Financial Research were told they are losing their jobs on Wednesday, according to Reuters. The office, part of the Treasury Department and created as part of the the Dodd-Frank legislation, is tasked with identifying financial risks and stress on global financial markets. The move was part of the administration’s larger plan to vastly reorganize the structure of the federal government, as announced in June. President Trump proposed slashing the office's budget and slashing employees last May.
Trump cuts staff from financial watchdog office: report | TheHill
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#85
Quote:From Wisconsin to South Carolina, small businesses are starting to lay off employees, and they're citing Trump's tariffs. Many firms have warned that the worst is yet to come. Some examples: Mid-Continental Nail, the largest US nail producer, laid off 130 workers after steel prices jumped. One of its plant managers said the entire business could shut down over the next few months. Element Electronics, a TV manufacturer, plans to lay off 127 workers from its South Carolina factory as "a result of the new tariffs that were recently and unexpectedly imposed on many goods imported from China." Brinly-Hardy, an Indiana-based maker of lawn-care equipment, laid off 75 workers. "We are collateral damage in this effort," Jane Hardy, the company's CEO, told The Washington Post.

The Tampa Bay Times said in April that it was forced to lay off 50 people because of a tariff on Canadian newsprint. Other newspapers in small communities, such as House Speaker Paul Ryan's hometown paper in Janesville, Wisconsin, have also been forced to lay off staff. Some businesses, such as Moog Music, which manufactures electronic musical instruments, have not taken action but have warned that the tariffs could eventually lead to layoffs. Other small businesses have furloughed workers or paused expansion plans while they wait and see how the trade fights play out. Small operators in industries from lobster fishing to metal shapers have curtailed workers' hours.
Trump's tariffs, trade war causing layoffs, losses for US business - Business Insider

Quote:Wages in the U.S. fell over the past year despite an ongoing economic boom, according to data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday. In the past 12 months through July, real average hourly earnings dropped 0.4 percent. That figure takes into account seasonal differences, as well as the effects of rising prices. An increase in the length of the average workweek was not enough to compensate for the fall, leaving average weekly earnings down 0.1 percent in the same period. Over the past month alone, real hourly wages were flat, while real weekly earnings dropped 0.2 percent. The sluggish advance in wages comes amid an economy that, by other measures, is booming. The economy grew at an annualized rate of 4.2 percent in the second quarter, and unemployment dipped below 4 percent in July.
Wages drop despite economic boom | TheHill
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#86
Quote:When Donald Trump ran for president, he promised to be a workers’ champion who would deliver  “better wages” for America’s working people. But 18 months into his first term, President Trump has neither pushed Congress to take legislative action to raise the federal minimum wage - which has been stuck at $7.25 for a decade - nor taken executive action to boost pay for 12.5 million workers who work in private sector jobsAs a result, Trump is now CEO of America’s top creator of poverty jobs:  the U.S. government.

A new study from Good Jobs Nation - Promises Broken #1 - shows that Trump’s federal government funds more than 4.5 million jobs in the private sector that pay less than a living wage of $15 per hour.  By failing to take action to raise wages, Trump is responsible for more low-wage jobs than our nation’s largest 20 employers combined, according to our research.
 
As a result, more than one in three private sector workers who serve the American people - from aiding seniors with their Medicare benefits to helping our troops prepare for combat - earn so little that they rely on food stamps and other public assistance programs to survive..
Trump administration is America’s No. 1 low-wage job creator | TheHill
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#87
To finance the tax cuts for the rich..

Quote:President Trump on Thursday announced that he would cancel a scheduled 2.1 percent across-the-board pay increase for federal workers, as well as locality pay increases. "In light of our Nation's fiscal situation, Federal employee pay must be performance-based, and aligned strategically toward recruiting, retaining, and rewarding high-performing Federal employees and those with critical skill sets," Trump wrote in a letter to the Speaker of the House and the president of the Senate.
Trump nixes federal pay raise | TheHill

Quote:What is Trump’s justification for denying these workers a cost of living adjustment? He says that it’s about putting us on a “fiscally sustainable course,” which is extremely rich for someone who just rammed through a huge tax cut for corporations and the wealthy. What makes it even richer is that on the same day that he announced that he was cancelling the pay rise, Trump floated the idea of using executive action to index capital gains to inflation, a de facto tax cut that would increase the deficit, and deliver 63 percent of its benefits to the wealthiest 0.1 percent of the population, 86 percent to the top 1 percent..
Opinion | Giving Government Workers the Shaft - The New York Times
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#88
Quote:After it was forced to retreat from an effort to make challenging labor practices harder in many workplaces, the National Labor Relations Board is moving to achieve the goal through other means. The board announced on Thursday that it was set to publish a proposed rule redefining a company’s responsibility under labor law for workers engaged at arm’s length, such as those hired by contractors or franchisees. The proposal, reversing an action taken during the Obama administration, would make it less likely that a company in such a situation would be deemed a joint employer liable for labor abuses like firing workers seeking to unionize.
Labor Board Moves Anew to Limit Employers’ Workplace Liability - The New York Times
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#89
Quote:Ben Carson’s HUD is a quiet scandal. The Washington Post reported on Thursday that the Department of Housing and Urban Development awarded large salaries to staffers with little experience and few academic credentials:

Quote:The raises, documented in a Washington Post analysis of HUD political hires, resulted in annual salaries between $98,000 and $155,000 for the five appointees, all of whom had worked on Donald Trump’s or Ben Carson’s presidential campaigns. Three of them did not list bachelor’s degrees on their résumés.

As the Post notes, HUD Secretary Ben Carson has no relevant experience himself. He’s a retired neurosurgeon, with no specialized skill or expertise in housing or welfare policy. In a statement, HUD assured the Post that it does have an experienced senior team, adding, “HUD employees represent a broad array of backgrounds and experiences, as different roles have unique responsibilities and require diverse skill sets.”

But under Carson’s tenure, HUD has steadily devolved into a do-nothing department. As Alec MacGillis reported for ProPublica in August, HUD is directly responsible for the housing needs of millions of low-income America. Its mission is welfare, and that makes it a target for small-government conservatives. With Carson at the helm, HUD gradually slowed or ceased many existing initiatives, especially if those initiatives pertained to protecting the rights of LGBT people. “Virtually all the top political jobs below Carson remained vacant. Carson himself was barely to be seen—he never made the walk-through of the building customary of past new secretaries,” MacGillis wrote. HUD has also rolled back efforts to enforce fair housing policy, and in May, Carson put forward a housing proposal that would triple rents for the poorest residents in public housing..
Ben Carson’s HUD is a quiet scandal. | The New Republic
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#90
Quote:President Trump issued an executive order Friday freezing federal workers’ pay for 2019, following through on a pledge earlier this year to nix the across-the-board pay increase. Trump had announced in August that he would cancel the 2.1 percent pay increase, which was slated to take effect in January. The order also cancels the “locality pay increase,” which adjust paychecks based on the region of the country where workers are posted. The order does not, however, impact a 2.6 percent pay raise for the military for next year that was part of a defense spending bill Trump signed in August.  The announcement making the pay freeze official comes as hundreds of thousands of federal employees head into the new year furloughed or forced to work without pay as a result of a partial government shutdown that began last week. The executive order affects most of the 2.1 million federal employees around the nation, about 1.7 million of which live in areas outside of the Washington, D.C., metro area.
Trump issues order freezing pay rate for federal workers | TheHill
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