The Worst Economic Actions & Omissions of the First Year of Trump’s Return

On this first anniversary of Donald Trump’s swearing-in to his second term, American workers and families are suffering. Economic actions and omissions by Trump and his Republican allies in Congress over the past year have threatened the healthcare of tens of millions; widened economic inequality and ballooned the deficit by showering tax cuts on the wealthy and corporations; undermined the rule of law and foregone hundreds of billions of dollars of federal revenue by gutting IRS enforcement; and cut other public services relied on by millions, including nutrition and energy assistance. Meanwhile, prices for key household services continued to skyrocket, making life increasingly unaffordable for ordinary families–even as job growth slows considerably. But billionaires set a new record for wealth, offering a quick and substantial payoff for those billionaire campaign contributors who helped Trump back into office and kept the GOP in control of Congress.  

Following are details of the economic harms caused by Trump and his fellow Republicans in Congress over the course of his first year back in power. 

Stripping Healthcare Coverage from Millions of Families & Doubling Costs for Millions More 

President Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats in Congress made healthcare more affordable for tens of millions of Americans who get their coverage through the Affordable Care Act (ACA) insurance exchange. By raising and expanding premium tax credits that lower out-of-pocket costs, the Democrats more than doubled the number of enrollees in the ACA exchange, to over 23 million in early 2025. 

All through 2025, President Trump and the Republicans who now run Congress refused to extend those enhanced tax credits that as a result wound up expiring at the end of the year, despite claiming that any lapse in tax policies that support working people would be harmful to the economy. According to one analysis, almost five million people will lose their insurance coverage in 2026 because the Republicans failed to act. Government analysts predict the number of uninsured Americans will increase by nearly four million a year over the next eight years in the absence of the enhanced credits. 

Those that manage to maintain their insurance face punishing premium increases. A family of four making $66,000 a year would on average see their annual premium more than triple, from about $1,450 to almost $4,500. A couple of 60-year-olds making $85,000 would on average have to somehow absorb an annual premium increase of around $24,500. Rates vary by state and in some of them the price hikes are even worse. In Wyoming, that same 60-year-old couple would be clobbered with a nearly $50,000 annual premium price increase. 

The enhanced premium tax credits, and resulting affordable insurance, were highly targeted to those who needed them. A government study found that nearly 90% of the benefit went to families making less than $150,000 a year, while those households with income of half a million dollars or more essentially got nothing. 

People of color will be particularly hard hit by these disastrous premium increases. Black and Latino participation in the ACA marketplace shot up when the enhanced premium tax credits were in place; now their participation will drop again with the disappearance of the enhanced credits. 

Widening Economic Inequality & Driving Up Deficits With Tax Cuts for the Rich

The enactment of the Big Ugly Law in 2025 is expected to reduce federal revenue by $4.5 trillion over the next decade, and represents one of the biggest upward transfers of wealth in American history. According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, just the top 0.1% of highest-income earners—roughly 200,000 households with an average annual income of $11 million each—are set to receive more than $48 billion a year from the Trump-GOP tax law, or $244,000 annually per household. That is in stark contrast to the mere $10 a year the nearly 40 million lowest-income households will each receive from the Trump-GOP tax law. The top 1% of households alone will get $1 trillion from this tax package. 

In fact, when the economic effects of the entire Big Ugly Law, including the cuts to public services (see below), are combined with President Trump’s heavy-handed tariff regime, only the top 10% of households will see their post-tax income increase over the next decade. The bottom 90% of households are going to be forced to pay an extra $13,600 on average due to higher prices and cuts to public benefits over the next 10 years.

Source: Americans for Tax Fairness analysis of CBO & Yale Budget projections of the tax law

Severely Cutting Public Services Including Healthcare, Nutrition and Clean Energy

Public services that benefit tens of millions of American families were severely cut back by Trump and congressional Republicans in the Big Ugly Bill in 2025. The cuts include:

• $990 billion from federal healthcare services. These harsh new healthcare restrictions will put 10 to 15 million Americans at risk of losing Medicaid coverage.
• $187 billion from federal nutrition programs serving 42 million Americans, including 16 million children and 8 million seniors. The Trump-GOP cuts will terminate or substantially cut benefits for 4 million people. This could mean a mother with one child who is out of work could see their food assistance cut from $536 per month to $292 per month.
• $500 billion from clean energy programs and credits, which will lead to 790,000 jobs lost and energy prices increasing by $37 billion annually for American households

Slashing IRS Resources to Let Rich & Corporate Tax Cheats Off the Hook, Costing Us Billions

Trump and congressional Republicans continued to champion rich and corporate tax cheats at the expense of law-abiding taxpayers by cutting in late March the last part of special enforcement funding the IRS had received from President Biden and congressional Democrats in 2022.

Biden and his Democratic allies were trying to restore an agency that had been severely depleted by Republican budget cuts. Over the previous decade, the GOP on Capitol Hill spearheaded an effort to hobble the agency by cutting its budget by 20% in real terms. Those cuts resulted in nearly a third less enforcement staff, a cut of 25 percent to all IRS agency staff, and a loss of four out of every 10 revenue agents specifically. Because of the depleted enforcement ranks, millionaires were audited less frequently than low-income families receiving the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC); and audits of corporations with billion dollar incomes fell by almost 90%.

The restored funding of 2022 yielded almost immediate results. Over 2023-4, the IRS collected over a half billion dollars in unpaid taxes from millionaires; began to investigate 100,000 other millionaires who had failed to file a return for seven years or longer; and began an effort to collect $30 billion from Microsoft in back taxes and related costs. In the summer of 2024 it was estimated that the agency would recover over half a trillion dollars in unpaid taxes by the time the special funding was scheduled to run out in 2034. 

Even as the IRS was cracking down on rich tax cheats, it was improving services for honest taxpayers. Average telephone wait times were cut down from 30 minutes to three; millions of unprocessed returns were cleared from the backlog; and a new Direct File system was established that allowed taxpayers to avoid paid tax preparers and file with the IRS directly for free. 

Unfortunately, bad bipartisan fiscal deals have all but eroded most of the IRA’s enforcement funding which is projected to lead to higher deficits and potentially higher rates of tax evasion by the ultra wealthy. President Trump and Congressional Republicans also increased costs on taxpayers by eliminating Direct File.

Beyond funding cuts, the Trump administration called in 2025 for the outright abolition of the IRS, and installed as its director an ethically-challenged former Congressman who while on Capitol Hill had advocated replacing the progressive income tax with a regressive sales tax. It also proposed shifting thousands of IRS employees from their jobs assisting honest taxpayers and trying to catch dishonest ones to the Department of Homeland Security to participate in Trump’s heavy-handed immigration crackdown. 

Keeping Prices Rising Fast for Key Household Services: Healthcare, Utilities & Insurance

Under Trump in 2025, prices kept shooting up on services families rely on, including healthcare, household utilities and home insurance. Electricity prices increased by 6.9% over the past year, energy prices in general by 7.4%, natural gas by 9.1% and fuel oil by 11.3%. Healthcare costs jumped by nearly 10%, and the cost of home insurance was expected to rise by 8%.

SOURCE: Americans for Tax Fairness

Meanwhile, job growth slowed considerably. Fewer than 50,000 new jobs a month were created in 2025, the weakest record in more than 20 years.

SOURCE: Americans for Tax Fairness

Paying Off Handsomely the MAGA Billionaires’ Electoral Bet On Trump & GOP

While American families struggle to pay the bills due to higher tariffs and cuts in public benefits, Trump’s billionaire cronies have never been wealthier. Billionaires bet big on Trump and Republicans in the 2024 elections, with just 30 MAGA billionaire families spending $1.4 billion to influence the outcome. Their investment seems to be paying off rapidly, with this clique’s collective wealth growing by $408 billion in 2025, an increase of 37.5% from the year prior. Billionaires across the country saw their collective wealth reach a record high of $8.2 trillion in the first year of the second Trump regime. Their total wealth increased from $6.7 trillion, a 22% increase in 2025.