Trumplandian Feudalism: Employ the Unemployed While Still Starving Them

Did Trump sud­den­ly drop his oft-repeat­ed crit­i­cism of tra­di­tion unem­ploy­ment report­ing and asser­tions that in real­i­ty its 42 per­cent and 94 mil­lion Amer­i­can adults are out of work? Well, as we’re going to see, prob­a­bly not because his admin­is­tra­tion is still plan­ning on redefin­ing the “offi­cial” unem­ploy­ment rate to be much “loos­er” and his claims that 42 per­cent if Amer­i­can adults are out of work are nec­es­sary to achieve a long-held GOP goal cham­pi­oned by House Speak­er Paul Ryan: con­vert­ing the US safe­ty-net — includ­ing Medicare, Med­ic­aid, and Social Secu­ri­ty — into a “work for a pit­tance to get a pit­tance of gov­ern­ment support”-net that traps the poor in sys­tem where if you have to find full time work to get any help at all. Maybe even for the elder­ly. And the help you get in return for that work-require­ment will keep shrink­ing year after year. It’s a plan that can’t hap­pen unless almost all non-work­ing adults are defined as “unem­ployed”. So, no, Trump did­n’t change his mind. He just still thinks we’re all stu­pid (maybe).