Donald Trump’s plans for the U.S. economy are raising red flags with economists, with Paul Krugman issuing a dire prediction for the president-elect’s supporters ahead of his inauguration.
“A lot of people are going to get brutally scammed,” the economist told The Daily Blast with Greg Sargent podcast, by the president-elect’s “really radical” and “terrible” economic policy proposals.
According to the Krugman, working-class Americans, many of whom cast ballots for Trump, will suffer under his plan to raise tariffs and cut taxes for high earners, describing the president-elect’s policy as “contrary to their interests,” noting that tariffs would drive prices up.
“Scamming people like that is what his whole life has been around,” he added.
American households say they are already strained financially by inflation, which remains above the Federal Reserve’s two percent target. Throughout his campaign, Trump vowed to reduce grocery prices but despite these promises, he has began walking back his price reduction claims in recent weeks.
The economist, who won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2008, also pointed to the impact of Trump’s mass deportations on the economy as being significantly disruptive.
A large exodus from the workforce would, Krugman argued, raise prices in agricultural, food processing, and construction industries, ultimately caused a labor shortage for large-scale projects.
As a whole, Krugman claimed, Trump “appears to have an extremely regressive economic program in mind, one that really will effectively redistribute income away from working-class voters to the top.”
“Trump wants to turn the clock back to 1896, and that’s not good for the U.S. economy,” he added.