Is Donald Trump a Friend to the Working Class

Mary Alice McCarthy

Donald Trump once again managed to wrest away a majority of working class voters from Democrats, a feat that proved decisive to his triumphant return to the White House. The victory is shocking for any number of reasons, but not least because the Biden-Harris White House was the most economically progressive and pro-worker administration in more than six decades.

Sorting through how Democrats lost the working class vote is both necessary and important. But it is also important for progressives to keep their gaze outward and hold the Trump-Vance administration and their allies in Congress up to their promises. Will they actually deliver economic benefits to working people? Based on past experience that seems unlikely. Either way, it's the question that needs to be asked and answered every single day between now and November, 2026.

When it comes to helping working families, the new Trump administration is re-entering Washington with the wind at its back. Projects funded through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), and CHIPS and Science Act (CHIPS) are just beginning in communities across the country, creating thousands of new jobs, many of them paying good union wages. That doesn't count the direct financial support and community projects funded through the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan which buffered the economic impact of the pandemic on working families.

It also doesn't count the many pro-worker regulations and Executive Orders issued by the Biden-Harris administration - expanding access to overtime pay, increasing wages for federal contractors, creating a "heat rule" to protect workers from high temperatures, appointing a General Counsel to the National Labor Relations Board to aggressively protect the rights of workers to organize. And more.

A pro-worker Trump administration could simply pick up the ball and keep moving it forward. An anti-worker Trump administration will rescind those regulations and EOs. Progressives need to be ready to call attention to which path he chooses.

It's not just executive actions that the new Trump White House can build on. It will also have many potential Democratic allies in Congress when it comes to helping working people. For example, Trump and Democrats could work together to:

1. Raise the minimum wage. The federal minimum wage stands at an embarrassingly low $7.25 an hour, where it has been since 2009. Raising it to $15.00 an hour would lift millions of low-wage workers out of poverty. According to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Hispanic workers would see the largest increases in earnings and reductions in poverty. Democrats have wanted to raise the minimum wage for many years but have been unable to because of Republican resistance. A Trump administration could break through that impasse in its first hundred days.
2. Increase taxes on wealthy individuals and corporations: Taxes will be on the agenda of the 119th Congress as many provisions in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA) expire. The tax cuts passed under TCJA allowed the top one percent to save over $60,000 per year in taxes - more than the annual income of two-thirds of Americans. Meanwhile, working class households got a tax cut of less than $500, not even enough to cover one month's worth of child care in most places. The TCJA's cuts to the corporate tax rate benefited the largest companies and their executives, with no appreciable impact on the earnings of workers. Cuts to the estate tax, as always, provided no benefit to the working class, only to the already wealthy children of wealthy families. President Trump would find many allies in Congress to reverse the tax cuts of the TCJA and implement a tax code friendlier to working families. If that's a bridge too far, given that the TCJA was one of the Trump's administration's few legislative achievements (and benefits him personally), he could at least expand and increase the child tax credit, which would provide significant relief to working families. Let's see.
3. Strengthen the social safety net and invest in public goods: The top one percent doesn't need government for much. Unemployment insurance, access to healthcare, affordable housing, well-funded public schools, clean water - these are not the concerns of wealthy families. They also do not appear anywhere in Project 2025, the Right's 900-page-plus governing blueprint for the incoming Trump administration. But they are top of mind for most working families. There will be many opportunities over the next two and four years for the Trump administration to strengthen our tattered social safety net and invest in the public goods that are the hallmarks of successful and worker-friendly democracies. And just as many opportunities for him to do the opposite.

These are only a few examples of how a new Trump administration could return the favor to working class voters for their support with tangible economic benefits. But if the past - or the prescriptions of Project 2025 - are any guide, the next Trump administration is more likely to reduce the economic well-being of working families than to increase it. That's what progressives need to focus on so there is no confusion about who supports America's working families.

Affirming feelings of resentment and betrayal among America's working class is easy. Anyone can put on a McDonald's apron for 15 minutes. Actually showing solidarity with working people and doing something to address our deeply-rigged, anti-worker economy is another matter entirely - just ask the Biden-Harris administration.