By Stacy M. Brown
Black Press USA Senior National Correspondent
America’s economy is not collapsing by accident. Under President Donald Trump, Russell Vought, and Stephen Miller, a deliberate plan has taken hold, a plan that weakens the labor market, starves families of food and health care, and rewards the wealthy with power and profit. What was once called “economic populism” has become an organized campaign of cruelty that has left the country broken and millions of Americans in despair.
The labor market is in free fall. UPS cut 48,000 workers, the largest reduction in its 117-year history. Amazon is firing up to 30,000 corporate employees. Intel eliminated 24,000 positions. Nestlé slashed 16,000 jobs. Ford and Accenture each let go of 11,000 workers. Novo Nordisk terminated 9,000 employees. Microsoft cut 7,000. PwC laid off 5,600. Salesforce dismissed 4,000. Paramount reduced 2,000. Target eliminated 1,800. Kroger cut 1,000. Applied Materials reduced 1,444, and Meta let go of 600. The layoffs have rippled across every major industry, devastating workers, families, and communities nationwide. According to Intellizence data, more than 4,200 companies have announced mass layoffs since January. The Associated Press reported that executives cite Trump’s tariffs, erratic trade actions, and federal instability as the leading causes of widespread job losses and frozen hiring.
While the job market collapses, Trump’s government shutdown has unleashed a humanitarian crisis. More than 42 million Americans, many of whom supported Trump, will lose access to food assistance through SNAP and WIC. Another 25 million people will lose their health care. Trump also canceled nearly 94 million pounds of food aid, including meat, eggs, and dairy, that were supposed to reach food banks across the country. For those working on the front lines of hunger relief, it was an invisible theft—food promised but never delivered. The U.S. Department of Agriculture confirmed it will not release $6 billion in contingency funds, claiming the money can only be used for “unforeseen events” such as natural disasters. Yet Trump approved $40 billion for Argentina, spent $1 billion for a private jet stationed in Qatar, and at least $300 million to destroy historic White House property and construct a new ballroom for himself. Taxpayers have been forced to pay an estimated $30 million for his golf trips, $520 million for unnecessary National Guard deployments, and $172 million for jets requested by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. None of those expenditures has lowered health care costs or provided relief to struggling families.
While ordinary Americans lose jobs, food, and medical care, Trump’s personal income has skyrocketed. The Trump Organization reported $864 million in revenue in the first half of 2025, a 17-fold increase from the previous year. Most of that money came from cryptocurrency ventures. Financial filings show $463 million from sales of World Liberty Financial tokens and another $336 million from TRUMP meme coins. The investigation revealed that foreign investors were heavily involved. Hong Kong-based billionaire Justin Sun, who reportedly was charged with fraud by the SEC in 2023, bought $75 million worth of Trump tokens. Abu Dhabi’s state-controlled MGX used Trump’s stablecoin to fund a $2 billion investment in Binance. Chinese businessman Guren “Bobby” Zhou, reportedly under investigation for money laundering in Britain, purchased $100 million in tokens. Trump, meanwhile, eliminated federal crypto enforcement teams, withdrew regulatory warnings, and pardoned Binance founder Changpeng Zhao after his conviction for anti-money-laundering failures. Ethics experts have called it the most blatant conflict of interest in U.S. history.
Vought, Trump’s former budget director and the author of Project 2025, created the framework for this collapse. His plan dismantles federal oversight, guts safety nets, and funnels public funds into private and partisan interests. Miller, Trump’s longtime political enforcer, has turned those ideas into action by starving agencies, blocking aid, and tightening control of the economy under the White House. Wall Street, meanwhile, is celebrating the pain. UPS shares surged nine percent after its mass firings, and Amazon’s stock climbed on news of more job cuts. Economists say this “profit from pain” economy has become Trump’s defining legacy, an America where corporate success depends on working-class suffering. The fallout is everywhere. Food banks are running out of supplies. Hospitals are closing departments. Families are skipping rent to pay for prescriptions. Millions who once believed Trump would protect them are now struggling to survive policies that favor billionaires, foreign investors, and the politically connected.
Georgetown University business professor Jason Schloetzer told the Associated Press that uncertainty has replaced confidence in every corner of the job market. “A lot of people are looking around, scanning the job environment, scanning the opportunities that are available to them, whether it’s in the public or private sector,” he said. “And I think there’s a question mark around the long-term stability everywhere.”
