President Donald Trump owes his re-election in part to some gains among working-class Latino voters who rolled the dice on a change in economic policy — but that change is likely to hit them worse than anyone else.
There are all the cuts to vital programs and services Republicans plan, including “changes to Medicare, the Affordable Care Act, and popular climate measures. These cuts alone would deeply hurt Latinos who live in climate change frontline communities and have benefited from the cost-saving energy rebates in the Clean Energy Plan. Worse yet, nine million Latinos are insured through the Affordable Care Act and 6.5 million Latinos use Medicare — roughly 10% of all enrollees. ” And all of this is to pay for big tax changes that will make lower-income workers pay $800 more on average while cutting taxes on the rich.
But that’s just the beginning, because Trump’s aggressive tariff proposals will raise the prices of goods all around the country — as will his plans for large-scale deportation of workers.
“Undocumented workers account for 22% of all U.S. agriculture jobs, 15% of all construction jobs, and 8% of all manufacturing jobs,”
Mass deportations could result in labor shortages—deeply impacting supply and driving up the cost of specific goods and services in these sectors. This is especially true of grocery prices, where inflation rattled consumers and remained stubbornly high during much of Biden’s presidency.”