The Naked Truth/Jamala Rogers
U.S. Workers to Face More Pain Under MAGA
As the government shutdown drags on, the pain on the U.S. economy deepens. Polls and other economic indicators show that President Trump’s reckless actions are hurting America’s workers and their families. The prognosis for a booming economy, as Trump has promised, is dim. With rising inflation, some economists are predicting a recession in the near future.
When the job numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics did not produce a rosy picture of the economy, Trump fired Commissioner Erika McEntarfer. Although out of his authority, Trump would love to also fire Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, whom he has been pressuring relentlessly to lower interest rates to make the economy look more robust. Soon, Trump-manipulated numbers will obscure the country’s economic reality, but all will be able to see and feel the impact of his actions.
According to FactCheck.org, the economy lost 2.7 million jobs under MAGA (with help from Elon Musk’s DOGE). With Trump tariffs, the international trade deficit went up, along with the federal debt. Unemployment is on the rise, the highest it has been in four years. Most workers are underpaid, overworked, and underappreciated — regardless of where they work and their job positions.
The economy is weak, and worker burnout is high. In the coming years, AI is likely to lead to millions of permanent job losses, many of which may be lost to the trash bin of history. The trump administration is already identifying, repurposing, and building facilities to detain large numbers of citizens as they deem necessary. Worker surplus seems inevitable.
The phenomenon of a worker surplus must be addressed, particularly with traditional safety nets being eliminated, such as food stamps and health insurance. We need to start a serious discussion about a structural solution to the massive surplus of workers. The uncertainty about how workers fare is sure to bring about upheaval and unrest. This will be met with Trump’s beefed-up military, which is being instructed to implement law and order by any means necessary.
AI is a technology that we don’t fully understand yet. While we are wrapping our heads around it, let’s deal with the factors we know intimately. We can start demanding jobs with livable wages and shorter hours. We should fight to maintain the efficacy of government agencies that support the health and well-being of working families. We can and must tackle the issue of what to do with valuable, displaced workers.