Threats to US Labor Force
As is typical, Republicans support Tr__p and Dems and Independents see less in Tr__p to support, Overall job approval comes in at 40%. If one believes that is low, I believe it will be even lower in the future as Tr__p continues to play with on and off and changing tariff rates.
The masked law enforcement called ICE? Donald Trump converts Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection (effectively part of the same operation) into a huge secret police force. What would one call an organization whose masked agents, bearing no identification, simply grab people off the street? Germany used similar tactics.
AB: I suspect on one occasion they grab the wrong person who will push back on ICE and Border Patrol and erupt into another OK Corral. This is not typical police enforcement. The economy will not fair so well when Tr__p eliminates low level labor.
Economically, what will occur is a large decline in America’s foreign-born labor force. When Stephen Miller began promising to deport 3,000 immigrants a day, many people dismissed this as an idle boast. It’s true that we can’t possibly deport people anywhere near that rapidly while obeying the law and following due process. “ICEing the U.S. Economy, and your point is what Paul Krugman?
Incredibly, I quite often hear people saying that illegal immigrants aren’t entitled to due process. Are such people really unable to understand that the point of due process is to determine whether someone is, in fact, here legally?
In any case, ICE arrests have been skyrocketing — not yet to Miller’s target, but heading there:
Losing large numbers of workers sounds as if it will be bad for the U.S. economy. In fact, it will be worse than you may think.
The reason? Immigrant workers are not spread evenly across the economy. They’re strongly concentrated in certain industries and occupations, where they constitute a large share, sometimes a majority, of the work force. As a result, the Trump administration’s latter-day Edict of Expulsion will be far more disruptive to the economy than the aggregate number of workers deported might suggest.
Losing large numbers of workers sounds as if it will be bad for the U.S. economy. In fact, it will be worse than you may think.
Immigrant workers are strongly concentrated in certain industries and occupations, where they constitute a large share, sometimes a majority, of the work force. As a result, the Trump administration’s latter-day Edict of Expulsion will be far more disruptive to the economy than the aggregate number of workers deported might suggest.
Consider, for example, agriculture. There are about 1.6 million paid agricultural workers in America, the great majority immigrants. Many of those immigrants are here legally, but it’s all too easy to imagine that anyone with brown skin will be at risk. So imagine that 800,000 of those workers end up being incarcerated and/or deported.
The link is there if you can access Krugman’s article.
AB: Some numbers and graphs to review.
Trump Ratings and U.S. Mood Stay Tepid in August, Gallup
Partisan Differences in Rating Trump at Peak Level
Ninety-three percent of Republicans approve of Trump’s overall job performance, compared with just 1% of Democrats, a 92-point gap. This ties the record for the largest partisan divide in Gallup’s presidential approval trends, first recorded in October 2020, right before the 2020 election.
The 1% of Democrats approving of Trump today matches their lowest approval rating for any Republican president, tying the figure recorded in June 2025. While strikingly low, this is on par with Democrats’ 2% approval rating of Trump in June 2020 and July 2025 and similar to their 3% ratings of George W. Bush in 2008 during the global financial crisis.
For comparison, Republicans’ lowest approval for any Democratic president was 2% for Joe Biden in several 2023-2024 polls.
Today’s partisan gaps in approval of Trump on the economy and foreign affairs are nearly as large as is seen for his overall rating, while the gap for his handling of education is a bit smaller. This is mainly owing to Republicans’ slightly lower approval of Trump on that issue, at 88%.
Economic Confidence Still Negative on Balance
Trump’s subdued approval rating on the economy reflects Americans’ continued disenchantment with U.S. economic conditions. While views had improved somewhat in May and June, they have since worsened and are now only slightly better than they were in October, just before Trump was elected.
This is mainly seen in the trend in Americans’ belief current economic conditions are “poor.” While close to half of Americans rated the economy as poor in October, just before the election, the rating fell to 40% in January and 31% in June. It has since climbed back to 38%. Meanwhile, 20% to 29% of Americans during this period have described conditions as “excellent” or “good,” while the percentage viewing economic conditions as “only fair” has ranged from 29% to 46%.
Americans’ outlook for the economy has been less variable, with the percentage saying it’s “getting better” ranging between 32% and 38% since October.
Gallup’s Economic Confidence Index takes into account evaluations of current economic conditions and perceptions of the economy’s direction. It was at -20 in August, a bit less negative than the -26 measured in October and -22 in April — but not to the point seen in June, when it rose to -14. The index has a theoretical range of -100 to +100.
Separately, the new poll finds 54% of Americans saying it’s a bad time to find a quality job, slightly improved from the 58% perceiving this in April but still worse than sentiment on the eve of Trump’s inauguration in January, when 48% said it was a good time and 45% a bad time. This year’s ratings contrast with figures seen in 2022 and 2023, when solid majorities of Americans were optimistic about the job market amid low unemployment once the U.S. economy began recovering from the pandemic.
Things are not so rosy. We have issues with rogue law enforcement snatching people off of the street.
More charts and graphs worth seeing at the Gallup site: “Trump Ratings and U.S. Mood Stay Tepid in August“