A new report shows that during President Trump’s first 100 days, he hurt workers and their families in at least 100 ways. The administration cut workers’ wages, made working conditions worse, damaged economic growth, hurt workers’ purchasing power, attacked immigrant workers, put healthcare at risk, caused inefficiency in the public sector, and attacked anti-discrimination protections, the federal workforce, public education, and independent agencies.
MARGARET POYDOCK; [email protected]
Poydock is a senior policy analyst at the Economic Policy Institute and a co-author of the report.
Poydock told the Institute for Public Accuracy: “There have been more than 100 actions that the Trump administration and Congress have issued that have impacted workers and the economy. We had to cut the list down to 100.
“The focus of this report comes from [the Economic Policy Institute’s] Federal Policy Watch, which tracks actions by the Trump administration, Congress, and the courts that impact workers’ quality of life. That means impacts on jobs, federal workers, the public and private sector in the states. It means things that impact purchasing power: how Trump’s policies impact how much people can spend or afford, healthcare, food.”
Journalists, union members, and policy makers can use the Federal Policy Watch as a go-to online tool that evaluates actions from Congress, the courts, and the Trump administration. The tool filters by issue area and shows whether an action was birthed by DOGE or is mentioned in Project 2025.
Poydock added: “A lot of these actions have been met with uproar by the public and were rescinded quickly, or are currently being challenged in the courts. But what is clear is that these actions, especially in the federal workforce, have impacts. Even actions that are put out and then rescinded still have lasting impacts. For federal workers who stay in the workforce for a long time, [the actions] lead to decline in morale and job insecurity.
“One action that has flown under the radar is that Trump issued an executive order that rescinded a previous Biden administration order raising the minimum wage for federal contractors to $15 per hour, indexed to inflation. There is now uncertainty about what the minimum wage is for federal contract workers. We’re still unclear what the exact impacts are. But the Economic Policy Institute estimated that the rule impacted roughly 400,000 workers. These federal contractor workers are janitors. They’re cashiers at museums or the Parks Service.”
Poydock also emphasized the level of the Trump administration’s interference with independent agencies, including noticeable cases important to economic policy and workers’ quality of life. “Trump is trying to interfere with independent agencies,” Poydock said. “When Trump fired Gwen Wilcox of the National Labor Relations Board, [he left the NLRB] without the three-person quorum required to decide cases. The board can still file elections or investigate employer practices, but if there’s a case that needs to be decided by the board, they’re unable to do so without the quorum. When Trump fired Wilcox, it was the first time a president had fired [a member of the NLRB]. His justification is that Wilcox was unduly favoring employees. Trump expects anyone he appoints to be on the side of employers over workers; if they don’t favor employers, they can lose their job… He is trying to shape the NLRB away from its mission of protecting workers’ right to organize and form unions. Workers are less likely to go to a board that is mandated by the president to favor employers over workers. Wilcox’s case is likely to go to the Supreme Court. There is a lot at stake, and the focus of that case is whether Trump can fire someone at an independent agency.”