Trump for the working class..

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The savior of the working class, if it wasn't so sad, it would be funny..

Donald Trump often portrays himself as a savior of the working class who will "protect your job." But a USA TODAY NETWORK analysis found he has been involved in more than 3,500 lawsuits over the past three decades — and a large number of those involve ordinary Americans, like the Friels, who say Trump or his companies have refused to pay them. At least 60 lawsuits, along with hundreds of liens, judgments, and other government filings reviewed by the USA TODAY NETWORK, document people who have accused Trump and his businesses of failing to pay them for their work. Among them: a dishwasher in Florida. A glass company in New Jersey. A carpet company. A plumber. Painters. Forty-eight waiters. Dozens of bartenders and other hourly workers at his resorts and clubs, coast to coast. Real estate brokers who sold his properties. And, ironically, several law firms that once represented him in these suits and others. Trump’s companies have also been cited for 24 violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act since 2005 for failing to pay overtime or minimum wage, according to U.S. Department of Labor data. That includes 21 citations against the defunct Trump Plaza in Atlantic City and three against the also out-of-business Trump Mortgage LLC in New York. Both cases were resolved by the companies agreeing to pay back wages.

USA TODAY exclusive: Hundreds allege Donald Trump doesn’t pay his bills

Read the story, it's horrendous.

And then this:

Trump himself has bragged about how he swindles contractors, saying, “I fight like hell to pay as little as possible,” and portraying it as a smart business practice — which is dubious, as he’s also spent a fortune on lawyers to get out of paying contractors. Instead, the practice likely speaks to Trump’s well-documented love of bullying and his sense of entitlement, in this case to extract quality work from contractors without paying for it..

Trump accidentally destroyed the GOP’s ridiculous myth about running the government ‘like a business’ – Alternet.org

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About 7 million fewer Americans had health insurance at the end of last year compared with two years prior, and the share of people who are uninsured is the highest it’s been since 2014, according to a new survey. During the fourth quarter of 2018, 14 percent of Americans were uninsured. That’s up from 11 percent at the end of 2016, and the increase has been steady over the months since then, according to the latest figures from the Gallup National Health and Well-Being Index, released Wednesday. Women, people who earn less than $48,000 a year and adults younger than 35 saw the highest increases in the uninsured rate.

7 million Americans have lost their healthcare insurance under Donald Trump — so far – Alternet.org

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DJTJ, as Donald Trump Jr. is often called, is closely aligned with Turning Point USA, which bills itself as a conservative organization focused on college students. Its founder, Charlie Kirk, often appears at Trump rallies and DJTJ has spoken at TPUSA rallies. TPUSA’s communications director, Candace Owens, was accused last week of defending Hitler.

So perhaps it’s no surprise that the President’s son would focus his attention on school-age conservatives, but his remarks inspired some to suggest he is the one in need of an education. “You know what I love?” Trump Jr. asked the crowd in El Paso. “I love seeing some young conservatives, ’cuz I know it’s not easy,” he said, reinforcing the Trump family’s theme that conservatives are marginalized victims. “Keep up that fight, bring it to your schools. You don’t have to be indoctrinated by these loser teachers that are trying to sell you on socialism from birth. You don’t have to do it,” he told the audience.

‘Go back to school, a**hat’: Parents and educators erupt in outrage after Donald Trump Jr. claims ‘loser teachers’ are indoctrinating students – Alternet.org

Yea, "loser teachers"..

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His budget cuts go after the nation’s most vulnerable populations, including children and the elderly. That’s apparently not enough. Now the Trump administration is trying to literally define the poor out existence by artificially lowering a poverty threshold already seen as insufficiently stringent to capture the true ranks of America’s poor. To do so, the White House Office of Management and Budget is relying on a sneaky, seemingly minor statistical tweak that will have major implications for who will be defined as poor—and thus what government benefits they will be able to claim. The idea is to select a different inflation measure for annual cost-of-living adjustments than the consumer price index that is currently used, such as the “chained” CPI or the personal consumption expenditures index or PCE. It sounds innocent enough, but in reality this will mean billions of dollars in cuts to key federal health programs that serve as a lifeline to the country’s neediest populations.

Trump wants poor people to disappear — so he’s making sure they do - MarketWatch

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A new study released Tuesday shows just how insidious the Trump administration’s proposal to change the way the federal government measures poverty actually is. In short: millions could lose health and food benefits. By way of background, in May, Trump’s budget agency sought public comment on updating the inflation rate used by the Census Bureau to determine the poverty line and estimate who’s poor. This technical change matters a lot because the federal poverty line is used to determine who’s eligible for government benefits like Medicaid, food stamps, and other assistance programs. The administration floated a lot of options to replace what’s known as the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which is what the government currently uses to estimate the federal poverty line. But given the administration’s desire to slash benefits, as made clear over the years in proposed budgets and bills, it is likely to use a measurement that would redefine poverty in a way that cuts federal assistance to millions of low-income Americans.

Millions to lose benefits under Trump’s proposal to change how poverty is defined, new study shows – ThinkProgress

The Trump administration is proposing bumping 3.1 million people off of food stamps (about 8 percent of the total program) through the federal rule-making process — cutting out Congress. The rule cracks down on “broad-based categorical eligibility,” or BBCE, a policy that enables states to enroll people in food stamps (formally called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP) if they’ve already applied for other benefits limited to low-income people, most notably Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). The claim (which doesn’t have much basis in evidence) is that this provision is easy to game and keeps benefits from going to the neediest people. That’s a lot of acronyms, but the basic point is this: The program that the administration is targeting helps needy people get access to food stamps more easily and quickly. Eliminating it will reduce access to benefits, to the tune of 3.1 million people, by the Trump administration’s own numbers.

Food stamps: the Trump administration is kicking 3.1 million people off - Vox

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Millions of Americans face losing access to food assistance under proposed rule changes by the Trump administration, a new analysis has found. The changes, if they had been instituted last year, would have resulted in 3.7 million fewer people and 2.1m fewer households receiving the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as Snap or food stamps, during an average month, according to the study.

The altered rules would also reduce benefits received by many people, with 2.2m households set to have their average monthly assistance cut by $127. Nearly one million students would lose access to free or discounted lunches. The analysis, by the not-for-profit Urban Institute, said that three planned changes to Snap would “significantly alter” food-based help provided to poor Americans, with disparities across the country in terms of impact. Benefits would be cut in most states, although states including Vermont, New York, Nevada and Connecticut would fare particularly badly. The Urban Institute said Snap had a “proven track record of reducing both poverty and food insecurity”..

Millions could lose access to food stamps under Trump proposal, study finds | US news | The Guardian

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Under the Trump administration, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has systematically rolled back workers’ rights to form unions and engage in collective bargaining with their employers, to the detriment of workers, their communities, and the economy. The Trump board1 has issued a series of significant decisions weakening worker protections under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA/Act). Further, the board has engaged in an unprecedented number of rulemakings aimed at overturning existing worker protections. Finally, the Trump NLRB general counsel (GC) has advanced policies that leave fewer workers protected by the NLRA and has advocated for changes in the law that roll back workers’ rights.

Unprecedented: The Trump NLRB’s attack on workers’ rights | Economic Policy Institute

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A days after Trump was boasting at the State of the Union address of an economy pumping away at a rate better than any in American history, Trump cut pay raises for federal employees from a planned 2.5% to 1%, adding that the “alternative pay plan decision will not materially affect our ability to attract and retain a well‑qualified federal workforce.” Again, the justification seems to revolve around the idea of a “national emergency or serious economic conditions affecting the general welfare,” which the White House says authorizes the president to ‘implement alternative plans for pay adjustments.” There was also a cut in federal employee retirement pay.

Your tax dollars at work: Trump’s new policies are way more alarming than his vengeance campaign against perceived enemies – Alternet.org

• And this after touting the strength of the economy as well as how good his policies have been to working people..
  

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When it comes to protecting workers’ health and safety, his administration has been a disaster. Once in office, Trump packed the leadership of U.S. regulatory agencies with pro-corporate zealots, leading to predictable results.  They repealed an Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) rule requiring employers to keep accurate records of injuries, repealed a rule requiring that federal contractors follow safety and labor laws, and withdrew an OSHA policy allowing workers to participate in OSHA inspections. In addition, as the AFL-CIO noted, the Trump administration targeted job safety rules for toxic chemicals, mine examinations, and child labor protections for destruction.  It also sharply reduced the number of OSHA inspectors. As of 2019, only 875 were enforcing health and safety regulations nationwide―the lowest level in the agency’s half-century of operation.

How Trump betrayed his promise to protect and fight for American workers – Alternet.org

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U.S. Rep. Chip Roy's introduction Friday of a bill to make federal bureaucratic personnel at-will employees further stoked fears that marginalized workers will suffer discriminatory firings under a future Republican administration or even GOP-controlled Congress. The Public Service Reform Act "will empower federal agencies to swiftly address misconduct and remove underperforming or ill-willed employees, creating a federal workforce focused on service to the American people," Roy (R-Texas) said in a statement. The bill "would make all federal bureaucrats at-will employees—just like private sector workers—and claw back the inordinate protections some federal employees grossly abuse," he added.

Following Trump's lead, GOP pushes bill to make federal workers fireable 'at will'