Wisconsin unemployment when President Donald Trump took office: 3.6 percent
Wisconsin unemployment now: 7 percent
Tomorrow, President Trump will arrive in Mosinee, Wisconsin, to hold a rally in an airplane hanger at Central Wisconsin Aviation. Earlier this week, he held an indoor event in Arizona, violating his own administrations’ coronavirus safety guidelines and was fined by the City of Henderson, which hosted his rally, for similarly putting its residents at risk over the weekend. His administration’s botched handling of the pandemic — and lying to the American people about the danger it posed — has led to the deaths of more than 195,000 Americans, including more than 1,200 in Wisconsin.
In Wisconsin, 215,000 fewer workers are employed now than when President Trump first took office in 2017 — a 7.3 percent decline. Following President Trump’s refusal to properly address the COVID-19 crises, Wisconsin’s unemployment rate sat at 7 percent in July. Additionally, President Trump’s executive action on unemployment insurance has caused chaos in states across the country, reducing benefits by $300 per week for those for whom the benefits were available at all. For perspective, even if implemented, a Center for American Progress analysis finds that the president’s action would leave a typical single-parent, one-child family in Wisconsin $1,807 short of making ends meet. Meanwhile, new reports show that if the Trump-backed lawsuit to repeal the Affordable Care Act — which will be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court a week after the election — succeeds, 224,000 state residents could lose health coverage and 2.4 million Wisconsinites with preexisting conditions could face higher premiums or be barred from coverage during the pandemic.
Instead of leading the country out of the pandemic, President Trump has continued his long-time assault on Social Security by calling for the termination of its main funding source — payroll taxes. President Trump’s proposal, according to Chief Social Security Actuary Stephen Goss, would wipe out the Social Security Trust Fund by 2023. More than 1.3 million Wisconsin residents are Social Security beneficiaries — roughly 21.6 percent of the total population.
Learn more about how the Trump administration’s policies have hurt Wisconsin families and put them at risk below.
Profits over wages
Claim: “I’m so good at business. Oh, you people are gonna be so rich so fast. You don’t even — you don’t know how rich you’re gonna be.” — President Trump in Rothschild, Wisconsin, April 2, 2016
Reality: The Trump administration blocked a federal minimum wage increase for Wisconsin workers:
- 909,000 Wisconsin workers were denied a pay increase, costing them a total of $2.8 billion in lost wages.
Taxes
Claim: “I am going to give a massive tax cut to every worker and small business in this country.” — President Trump in West Bend, Wisconsin, August 17, 2016
Reality: Most of the Trump administration’s $2 trillion tax cut goes to corporations and the rich. Many Wisconsin families are getting stuck with the bill.
- 126,120 Wisconsin families paid more in taxes in the first year after President Trump’s tax cuts.
- For the 2019 tax year, the average tax cut for the wealthiest 1 percent of Wisconsin earners was $39,610. The average tax cut for the middle 20 percent of Wisconsinites was $790.