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Cheating Workers Out of Their Paychecks Is How Trump Does Business

Jan. 11, 2019

Cheating Workers Out of Their Paychecks Is How Trump Does Business

Statement of Robert Weissman, President, Public Citizen

Note: Today hundreds of thousands of federal workers and contractors around the country will not receive paychecks owed to them or will receive pay stubs in the amount of $0.

Cheating, scamming and ripping off workers is a Donald Trump tradition that goes back decades. Federal workers are just Trump’s latest victims.

For decades, Trump repeatedly didn’t pay those who worked for him, and now that he’s in the White House, little has changed. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers and employees of federal contractors are suffering the same fate because of the Trump shutdown.

To add insult to injury, Trump has glibly claimed that “workers will make adjustments” and that he “can relate,” which is pretty rich coming from a six-time bankrupt real estate mogul who inherited his daddy’s fortune. Working families who are living paycheck to paycheck and can no longer afford to pay for rent, groceries and medical bills because of Trump’s reckless shutdown have every right to be furious at the president’s oblivious and patronizing remarks.

As a candidate, Trump promised, “the American worker will finally have a president who will protect them and fight for them,” but as president, he has betrayed workers at every turn. From rolling back health, safety and wage protections to misleading coal miners to tax giveaways for billionaires and big corporations that left most Americans with a pittance, it should be obvious by now that Trump holds working people beneath contempt.

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