Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, REPORTS—Economic Policy Institute details 100 Trump actions and impacts on workers, (May 8, 2025)

By Patricia K. Ruiz, J.D.

The report describes the effect of the administration’s actions on wages, working conditions, economic growth, and purchasing power.

A report by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) outlined 100 ways that President Donald Trump has hurt workers in his first 100 days in office. The Trump administration has “engaged in a near-daily onslaught of actions” seeking to dismantle the federal government and eliminate services and benefits relied on by working families, EPI explained. The list represents most of the actions it has identified in its Federal Policy Watch, which tracks how President Trump, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Congress, and the courts are affecting workers’ quality of life.

Wages and working conditions. President Trump has taken actions to reduce workers’ wages and deteriorate labor conditions, most directly by reducing the minimum wage for federal contractors, an action that could result in pay cuts from 25 to 60 percent for these already low-wage workers. President Trump has attacked worker protection agencies, including ones responsible for the worker health and safety standards, including the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), which lost roughly 870 employees, and the Department of Labor, which lost 90 percent of its staff. President Trump has also attacked workers’ union and collective bargaining rights, as well as the staff of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), including NLRB member Gwynne Wilcox for “unduly disfavoring the interests of employers.” Within the federal workforce, President Trump stripped more than one million federal workers of the right to organize and collectively bargain.

Economic growth and purchasing power. In his first 100 days, President Trump made a series of economic policy choices, undermining the strength of the economy he inherited and making most U.S. workers and their families substantially poorer in coming years. His policies threaten to slow wage growth while raising prices, constraining the purchasing power of workers from both directions. The clearest recessionary threat, according to the EPI, is the president’s chaotic implementation of the highest U.S. tariffs in more than a century, including announcing, rolling back, or pausing tariffs in the same day, paralyzing U.S. businesses and households looking to make high-stakes decisions. Mass deportations the Trump administration has begun to implement will be a sharp shock to the nation’s labor supply, resulting in slower growth. Further, cuts to key safety net program, such as Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, will do damage to future productivity, EPI predicts.

Chaos and inefficiency in the public sector. President Trump and DOGE have taken aim at federal workers and the critical services they provide, doing so under the guise of eliminating government waste, fraud, and abuse, or eliminating programs aimed at promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion. Along with firing thousands of probationary employees, politicizing senior career civil servants, and taking steps to make it easier to fire federal workers holding typically apolitical jobs, the administration has shuttered entire agencies, including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. The administration has also fired thousands of public sector workers and closed government offices that oversee federal DEI initiatives. The president has also interfered with the independence of federal agencies, firing members of the Merit Systems Protection Board and the Federal Labor Relations Authority and making his own appointments that will side with him and his policies.

News: LaborNews AgencyNews ImmigrationNews IndustryNewsTrends Labor Discharge Discrimination NationalOrigin GovernmentContracts Immigration PublicEmployees Retaliation MinimumWage Reports