Joe Lavorgna, senior adviser to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, told Sirius XM’s Breitbart News Saturday that the blue-collar wage boom happening under President Donald Trump will only get better moving forward.
Lavorgna joined Breitbart News Washington Bureau Chief Matthew Boyle for a 13-minute segment on the program, where they kicked off the discussion with the rising wages among blue-collar workers — a 1.4 percent increase in 2025.
“The real blue collar boom, which we’re seeing — we’ve got a 1.4 percent annualized year-to-date increase, which is the second fastest start of a new administration dating back 60 years. The only time it was faster, and it was just a smidgen faster, was President Trump’s first term, when it grew 1.5 percent,” Lavorgna told Boyle.
He said the effects of the recently signed One Big Beautiful Bill will be a “boon” for blue-collar workers on top of the administration’s hot start to increasing wages.
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“However, the good news is with the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill, which brings back 100-percent expensing for capital expenditure and adds the new caveat, the novel approach of full expensing for factories and plants — that is going to be a boon for blue-collar workers,” he said. “Those are carpenters, electricians, plumbers, laborers.”
“It also includes things like nursing assistants, people that work in retail and wholesale trade, basically the backbone of the economy. Those workers are going to benefit from the increased capital that companies are incentivized now to make those commitments, in addition to the building of factories,” he added. “The workers who are going to build those factories are going to get paid, and workers are going to get paid more when they’re working in those factories. So it’s President Trump’s commitment to building that is going to really lead to what he calls the Golden Age, and this blue collar boom thing is going to extend and get even better going forward.”
Boyle emphasized that the One Big Beautiful Bill was signed much earlier in Trump’s second term than the Trump Tax Cuts were in his first term, and suggested that increases in blue-collar wages could ultimately eclipse the record set in Trump’s first term because the One Big Beautiful Bill was signed at an earlier point in the term.
Lavorgna concurred, saying, “That’s exactly right,” and noted that workers are going to benefit in additional ways that will not be seen in real wage numbers.
“What you saw after the bill went into effect in 2017, you saw the middle- and lower-end workers outperform the higher-end workers. We’d expect to see the same thing again, given how the bill is structured,” he told Boyle.
“This won’t even be captured specifically in the real wages, but the middle- and lower-income workers are going to benefit from the no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, lower taxes on Social Security benefits for the working seniors,” he added. “All those things will lift what you call real after-tax income, giving people more money to spend and do what they choose to do with. It’s the president’s commitment to really lifting Main Street, and which Secretary Bessent, I know, has been very proud in pushing President Trump’s agenda.”
Lavorgna stressed the administration is focused on “the forgotten man and woman.”
“Those are the people that came out in record numbers in 2016, 2020, and even more so in 2024, and the president has a mandate and — to help those people that need it, that did not see any real income growth, household income growth…basically zero real income growth in the 16 years prior to when President Trump was first elected,” Lavorgna said. “He’s trying to make a commitment to get people’s livelihoods and living standards higher. That’s what he cares about. And you know, look, if Main Street does well, Wall Street will do well. Wall Street sort of always does well.”
Breitbart News Saturday airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Eastern.
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