Families In Crisis: RNC Chaos Presidency Fact Sheet
August 24, 2020
Trump’s failed handling of coronavirus has put families in crisis.
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CHILDREN AND TEACHERS: Trump has no plan to allow kids to return to school safely and lied that children are immune to the virus.
- Trump demanded that schoolsfully reopen in the fall, lashed out at the CDC’s guidelines, and even threatened to withhold federal funding, but offered little guidance or resources for how schools should do so safely.
- After abandoning negotiations with Democrats for more coronavirus relief, Trump instead signed executive orders that provided no funds whatsoever for schools, or funding for state and local governments that are being forced to lay off teachers.
- Trump and Betsy DeVos have claimed children are virtually immune to the coronavirus, but research has increasingly shown that children can be infected and spread the virus to others.
SENIORS: Trump failed to provide nursing homes with crucial resources, such as personal protective equipment and adequate testing. He pushed forward with a rollback of protections for nursing home residents. Now, he wants to take from Social Security and Medicare to mitigate the economic fallout from his failure to contain the virus.
- As coronavirus ripped through nursing homes, the Trump administration failed to provide facilities with needed resources and pushed ahead with efforts to relax regulations.
- Trump repeatedly said that he wants to permanently cut or eliminate the payroll tax that helps fund Social Security and Medicare. He admitted that he would consider cutting Medicare and Social Security if he wins reelection, and proposed cutting hundreds of billions from both programs in his budget every year.
PARENTS AND CAREGIVERS: During unprecedented circumstances that have forced parents into a childcare emergency and strained caregivers, Trump scaled back paid leave requirements and cut the unemployment supplement in half.
- The Trump administration scaled back paid leave requirements for employers during the pandemic, allowing many companies to decline to provide sick leave for childcare, and used a broad definition to exclude health care workers from paid sick leave under coronavirus response legislation.
- As Trump failed to contain the virus, he left people out to dry and walked away from negotiations on a relief bill to bring families much-needed support.
- Trump’s executive actions cut enhanced unemployment benefits in half and, and despite his claims, won’t stop evictions for up to 40 million Americans that risk being evicted in the next few months.