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100 ways Trump hurt workers in his first 100 days [1]

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Date: 2025-04

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The first 100 days of Trump’s second term have been chaotic. Trump along with Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have engaged in a near-daily onslaught of actions to dismantle the federal government and eliminate services and benefits that working families rely upon. Some of Trump’s actions were rolled back days after being announced and others are tied up in legal challenges, making it difficult to determine the full impact of Trump’s policies at this time. But even amid the chaos, these policies still caused pain to working people and the economy: He reduced workers’ wages, made workplaces less safe, threatened workers’ retirement savings by destabilizing the global economy, and gutted government offices that administer fundamental programs covering millions of people in the United States like Social Security and Medicare.

In this report, we identify 100 ways Trump hurt working people and our economy in the first 100 days of his administration. While not exhaustive—actions have been taken nearly every day that impact working people—this list represents most of the actions we have documented in EPI’s Federal Policy Watch, which tracks how the Trump administration, Congress, and the courts are affecting workers’ quality of life.

Cutting workers’ wages and making working conditions worse

During the first 100 days of his administration, Trump has taken actions that reduce workers’ wages and deteriorate their labor conditions. Most directly, Trump reduced the minimum wage for federal contractors, which could cost these lower-wage workers anywhere from 25% to 60% in pay cuts. He also repealed an order directing agencies to prioritize “high road” employers—i.e., employers that agree to pay workers the prevailing wage and provide benefits like paid leave and health insurance—in awarding federal contracts. Trump also eliminated federal incentives for programs that provide workers on federal projects with training opportunities for higher-wage skilled trade occupations.

Further, Trump and DOGE have attacked critical worker protection agencies including those responsible for worker health and safety standards. Specifically, Trump fired nearly two-thirds of the staff (roughly 870 employees) at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), an agency created to ensure safe and healthy working conditions. This reduction essentially eliminated divisions of the agency focused on the health and safety of miners, firefighters, and health care workers. Trump also stalled the implementation of a rule that would protect miners from silica exposure, leaving miners less safe and at greater risk for black lung disease. And Trump fired 90% of the staff at an office in the Department of Labor (DOL) who ensure that federal contractors abide by anti-discrimination laws and canceled grants for programs to combat forced and child labor around the world, which also protect jobs and workers in the U.S. by deterring unfair competition from imports produced with forced labor.

Trump also attacked workers’ union and collective bargaining rights and the independent federal agency tasked with protecting these fundamental labor rights. He fired National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Member Gwynne Wilcox for “unduly disfavoring the interests of employers”—making very clear his expectation that the NLRB members side with employers if they don’t want to lose their jobs. This is further evident by Trump nominating a partner at Morgan Lewis, the firm challenging the constitutionality of the NLRB, as the agency’s General Counsel. Within the federal workforce, President Trump stripped more than one million federal workers of their rights to organize and collectively bargain. Unions and collective bargaining provide workers with critical leverage to help improve their wages, benefits, and working conditions. Research shows that high rates of unionization are consistently associated with higher wages and better working conditions for both union and nonunion workers. By weakening workers’ organizing and bargaining rights, the Trump administration has hamstrung key tools for workers to improve their wages and working conditions.

Ways Trump impacted workers’ wages and working conditions

Damage to economic growth and U.S. workers’ purchasing power

In just 100 days, Trump made a series of terrible economic policy choices that undermine the extraordinary strength of the economy he inherited and will make most U.S. workers and their families substantially poorer in coming years. This threat to typical families’ income growth will be acute in the short run as the current Trump policy path leads straight to recession.

Trump’s policies threaten to slow wage growth while also raising prices, constraining workers’ purchasing power—how much their wages can buy—from both directions. Further, those threats loom in the short run because of the high risk of recession directly caused by Trump’s policies, but also in the longer run (after any recession passes) as Trump’s policies will lead to a less efficient and less dynamic economy.

The clearest recessionary threat is Trump’s chaotic implementation of the highest U.S. tariffs in over a century. Even a decisive and clear announcement of tariffs this high would have been bad for short-term growth; it would require overhauling hundreds of embedded global production networks. Further, high and broad-based tariffs (even announced in a decisive and orderly way) are a regressive tax on U.S. households that will significantly suppress consumer spending.

But it is the chaotic implementation of these historically-high tariffs—with tariffs announced, rolled back, or paused in the same day—that is utterly paralyzing for U.S. businesses and households looking to make high-stakes decisions in coming months. Where and whether to build a factory, buy a new home, or take on debt for a new credential all hinge on one’s expectations of what the U.S. economy will look like in coming months and years. Trump’s tariff chaos will freeze many of these decisions, leading to sharp cutbacks in consumer and business spending and pushing the economy toward recession.

On top of the misguided tariff policy, the sharp reductions (likely illegal) to the federal workforce and DOGE’s spending cuts will also squeeze economy-wide spending and contribute to recessionary pressures in the short run. The squeeze on federal spending will become extreme if any significant part of the extensions of the 2017 tax cuts currently working their way through Congress are financed with spending cuts (which Congressional budget resolutions currently call for). These spending cuts are set to fall on extremely resource-constrained households and will lead directly to less spending in the economy. To the degree that the legal uncertainty and chaos associated with DOGE affects business and household decision-making (like the tariff policy has), this is yet another factor that will stunt high-stakes spending decisions in coming months.

Regardless of the depth of the Trump recession, the current policy path would also lead to slower long-run growth in workers’ purchasing power. DOGE cutbacks will hamstring the public sector’s ability to undertake all sorts of key functions that complement private-sector growth. Infrastructure spending will be slower coming online if there are fewer Department of Transportation employees to administer projects. Pharmaceutical inventions will take longer to be approved because of staff cuts at the Department of Health and Human Services. Tax questions from households and small businesses will take longer to resolve with fewer Internal Revenue Service (IRS) employees. Further, the social returns to basic science and research and development activities financed by federal grants are very large, accounting for a significant share of productivity growth in the post-World War II era. A large shock to the workforce that administers this spending, and the actual dollar flows to universities and other research centers is a profoundly anti-growth policy change.

Further, the mass deportations threats that Trump has already begun to implement would be a sharp shock to the nation’s labor supply. This would by itself result in slower growth. Additionally, research has shown that, rather than being a source of competition, immigrant workers are strongly complementary with U.S.-born workers in sectors like restaurants and construction. Sharp cuts to the immigrant workforce would introduce damaging bottlenecks in these sectors. The result would be sharp increases in the prices of food and housing, tamping down households’ purchasing power.

Cuts to key safety net programs like Medicaid or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program will also do large damage to future productivity. Children accessing these benefits are known to perform better in school, have higher educational credentials, earn higher wages when they become adults, less contact with the criminal justice system, and be less likely to draw on income support programs as adults. In short, these programs are an investment in the productivity of the future workforce, and cutting them will lead directly to reduced productivity and poorer economic outcomes.

Ways Trump impacted the economy and workers’ purchasing power

Attacks on immigrant workers

Attempted illegal federal funding freeze

Temporarily froze the payments of more than 2,600 federal programs, such as funding for apprenticeship and job training programs and scientific research grants; Trump sought to block the spending of government dollars that have already been allocated and approved by Congress.

Putting health care at risk

Unleashing chaos and causing inefficiency in the public sector

In the first 100 days of this administration, Trump and DOGE have waged a war against federal workers and the critical services they provide. They have done so under the guise of eliminating government waste, fraud, and abuse or eliminating programs aimed at promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). However, Trump’s attacks have gone well beyond targeting specific programs. From attacking the Social Security Administration to cancelling National Institute of Health grants for fighting childhood cancer, Trump has made sweeping changes to the federal sector.

Trump fired thousands of probationary employees, politicized senior career civil servants, and took steps to make it easier to fire federal workers in jobs that are normally apolitical. Further, Trump and DOGE have shuttered entire agencies, like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, U.S. Agency for International Development, and Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. Under the guise of eliminating DEI programs, Trump fired thousands of public sector workers and closed government offices that oversee federal DEI initiatives, undermining the federal government’s ability to attract and retain a responsive, representative federal workforce.

In addition to attacking the federal workforce, Trump tried to interfere with the independence of federal agencies. He fired members of the Merit Systems Protection Board and Federal Labor Relations Authority, agencies that hear personnel and labor disputes within the federal government. By firing members of independent agencies, Trump has made way for his own appointments that will side with him and his polices, many of which are being challenged in the courts.

Despite Trump’s claims that these attacks on the federal workforce will eliminate waste, fraud, and inefficiency, revoking antidiscrimination and labor protections doesn’t make government more efficient and leaves workers with fewer protections and more vulnerable to political intimidation. Reducing the size of government doesn’t make it less wasteful, it puts a strain on the services it’s required to provide. And impulsively dismantling government agencies won’t root out fraud, but it will degrade the public goods and services we use every day. These actions are intended to foster distrust in the federal government and allow for the dismantling of government services on which millions of working people rely.

Ways Trump attacked the federal sector

Attacks on anti-discrimination protections

Attacks on federal workforce

DOGE and Musk as its head

Attacks on public education

Attacks on independent agencies

Conclusion

In the first 100 days of his second term, Trump has hurt working people and the economy over 100 ways. From his attacks on workers’ rights to his chaotic implementation of historically high tariffs, and his dismantling of critical federal agencies and the programs they administer, Trump’s actions have left workers with fewer rights and have put the U.S. economy on a path toward an almost certain recession.

While some of Trump’s policies have been stopped in the courts and more are currently being challenged, he has demonstrated a willingness to disregard the rule of law, leaving all working people more vulnerable to the whims of his billionaire advisors. We will continue to track and analyze the actions of the Trump administration on Federal Policy Watch.

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[1] Url: https://www.epi.org/publication/100-days-100-ways-trump-hurt-workers/

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