Brad Bannon nails it in his Sept. 10 report: “Jobs are down, prices are up and Trump is in trouble . Brad Bannon is a national Democratic strategist and CEO of Bannon Communications Research which polls for Democrats, labor unions and progressive issue groups. He hosts the popular progressive podcast on power, politics and policy, Deadline D.C. with Brad Bannon.
Bannon refers to a new jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that “paint an astonishingly bleak picture of the Trump economy.” He continues. “The nation created few jobs in August, and BLS added to the grim portrait by taking off the board almost a million jobs that had supposedly been created over the last year.”
And the economy is still affected by inflation. On this, Bannon points out that
“Prices in July were up by 2.7 percent over the year prior, and employers predict a big increase in the cost of health insurance.” A recent national survey of registered voters for The Economist by YouGov.com finds that “Inflation was the problem that the most voters worried about and Republicans were even more concerned about the high cost of living than Democrats.” He adds, “Less than 40 percent of voters approved of Trump’s handling of high prices.” Further, Trump’s “stiff taxes [tariffs] on imports and his deportation of immigrant farm and construction workers have placed a severe burden on hard working and financially hard-pressed American families.” -
Stagflation concerns rise with rising inflation and jobless claims
Andrew Ackerman and Lauren Kaori Gurley report on this issue for the Washington Post. Andrew covers the way Washington oversees Wall Street. follow on X@amacker. Lauren is the labor reporter for The Washington Post. She previously covered labor and tech for Vice for three years. follow on X@laurenkgurley
Inflation
“Inflation heated up in August at a 2.9 percent annual rate — a faster pace than in June and July as higher housing and food prices weighed on consumers’ wallets, according to the Labor Department.” On a monthly basis, prices rose 0.4 percent — a bit hotter than expectations, according to the agency’s consumer price index. Higher shelter costs was the largest factor in the monthly rise, though food prices also jumped 0.5 percent. The hotter figures are well above a low set in April.
“Earlier this summer, consumer prices began rising across a broader range of goods and services. June data pointed to notable increases in imports such as cosmetics, shoes and toys, as well as medical care. In July, furniture prices — heavily exposed to tariffs — jumped 0.9 percent, while tomato prices, hit by duties on Mexican imports, surged 3.3 percent.”
“Last month, apparel prices rose 0.5 percent and used car and truck prices rose 1 percent. And new vehicle prices ticked higher after four straight months of price declines or no changes.”
Unemployment
“In the labor market, fresh revisions to government data show U.S. employers added far fewer jobs over the summer than initially reported, underscoring a loss of momentum in hiring. The Labor Department said Tuesday that businesses created 911,000 fewer jobs from April 2024 through March 2025 than earlier estimates suggested — evidence the slowdown was already underway even before Trump’s sweeping new tariffs and immigration policies began squeezing business costs.”
“Separately, new applications for weekly unemployment benefits jumped to 263,000 last week, the highest level since October 2021, according to a separate report released Thursday by the Labor Department.”
Anti-Union
Brad Reed writes on Trump’s attacks on unions for Common Dreams, Sept 01, 2025.
“Although US President Donald Trump's administration likes to boast that he puts ‘American workers first,’ several news reports published on Monday [Sept. 1] document the president's attacks on the rights of working people and labor unions.”
Reed quotes the longtime labor reporter Steven Greenhouse who explained in The Guardian that “Trump throughout his second term has ‘taken dozens of actions that hurt workers, often by cutting their pay or making their jobs more dangerous.’" He gives these examples.
“Trump's decision to halt a regulation intended to protect coal miners from lung disease, as well as his decision to strip a million federal workers of their collective bargaining rights.” He quotes Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO,
“‘His attacks on unions are coming fast and furious,’ she said. "He talks a good game of being for working people, but he's doing the absolute opposite. This is a government that is by, and for, the CEOs and billionaires."
Reed continues.
“Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute, similarly told Greenhouse that Trump has been ‘absolutely, brazenly anti-worker,’ and she cited him ripping away an increase in the minimum wage for federal contractors that had been enacted by former President Joe Biden as a prime example.”
“NPR published its own Labor Day report that zeroed in on how the president is ‘decimating" federal employee unions by issuing March and August executive orders stripping them of the power to collectively bargain for better working conditions.’”
He continues. “So far, nine federal agencies have canceled their union contracts as a result of the orders, which are based on a provision in federal law that gives the president the power to terminate collective bargaining at agencies that are primarily involved with national security.
“The Trump administration has embraced a maximalist interpretation of this power and has demanded the end of collective bargaining at departments that aren't primarily known as national security agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Weather Service.”
“The administration has weakened the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) so that even when workers successfully join or start a union, they may no longer get their grievances heard.” Moreover, the president is now able to fire NLRB administrative judges at will.
The most anti-union president ever
Harold Meyerson argues that Trump is the most anti-union president ever.
. Harold Meyerson is editor at large of The American Prospect.
Here are excerpts.
Donald Trump “chose to celebrate this year’s Labor Day by announcing last Thursday his unilateral abrogation of the federal government’s contracts with the unions that represent the scientists, engineers, and other staffers at NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (which includes the National Weather Service), the Patent Office, and the International Trade Administration. This follows his earlier contract terminations with the unions that represented 400,000 employees at the Department of Veterans Affairs, as well as those at the Department of Health and Human Services, and other major departments.”
According to a study from the Center for American Progress (CAP), these Trump-imposed contract nullifications have cost 81.8 percent of civilian federal workers their right to collectively bargain—and that study came out before last Thursday’s new round of government fuck-you’s to its workers. The total number of workers whose contracts Trump has trashed now exceeds one million, which comes to approximately one-fifteenth of American workers covered by a union contract. Georgetown University labor historian Joe McCartin terms this ‘by far the largest single action of union busting in American history.’”
“What’s behind Trump’s union busting? At one level, he wants to destroy unions simply because they oppose him; opposition is all it takes for Trump to order a hit. At a deeper level, unions are a voice from below, and their autonomy poses a threat to autocrats. Even enfeebled unions have the potential to reawaken and join a battle to thwart despots. It’s no accident that every Western democracy has had—at one time, at least—a powerful union movement; just as it’s no accident that no autocracy—and no aspiring autocrat like Trump—can tolerate one. A core part of Hitler’s seizure of total power was the utter destruction of the German labor movement.”
“That said, labor has retained and even enhanced one form of strength: Today, in this populist age, unions are the only American institution whose popularity has been steadily rising, winning 68 percent approval ratings in Gallup’s polling. The gap between that level of approval and the 6 percent unionized share of private-sector workers, however, illustrates how completely the rickety remains of labor law have failed to enable a pro-labor workforce to go union—despite the best, though short-lived, efforts of Biden’s NLRB, and even before the havoc that second-term Trump has inflicted on unions. The 2026 elections may afford unions an opportunity to arrest some of Trump’s attacks; the 2028 elections, an opportunity to reverse them. Even then, the road to re-establishing workers’ rights will be steep.
Concluding thoughts
In short, as documented, Trump has little concern for ordinary workers or the unions representing a minority of these workers. This is one important aspect of an unfolding autocracy.
Donald Trump demonstrates over and over again how he wants to transform the federal government away from one that reflects the Constitution and the law to one that he can lawlessly dominate – to be a “king” or “dictator.” If he is successful, workers will become even less secure than now, with lower wages and job benefits, and with the demise of ever-more restraints on Trump’s power. For further information on such a future, check out Thomas B. Edsall’s column, “What Can’t Trump wreck?.