In A real agenda for working people, the Economic Policy Institute lays out a detailed five-point agenda to boost working people’s wages and quality of life. It includes policies to target full employment, strengthen rules that support wages and work, and protect and strengthen the right to collective bargaining, as well as reorienting trade policy to support working people and raising top tax rates to fund necessary public investment and reduce the economic power of the top 1 percent.

“Donald Trump ran his campaign that was long on populist rhetoric and positioned himself as the pro-worker candidate.” said EPI President Lawrence Mishel. “It was noticeable that he embraced the tried-and-failed Chamber of Commerce playbook of tax cuts for corporations and the rich, deregulation, and rolling back worker protections and union rights.”

EPI’s agenda provides a path forward that strengthens workers’ rights and raises the wages of all workers. A real agenda for working people recognizes that working Americans are more diverse, and working-class jobs are more varied, than ever before. The factory worker and the nursing aide are both losing hope and dignity in an economy that increasingly works great for those at the top but produces growing economic insecurity for the rest.

“Our agenda provides a yardstick with which to measure the effectiveness of Trump’s policy agenda in boosting wages for working people,” said Mishel. “In the months ahead, EPI will provide a clear-eyed and rigorous assessment of the Trump economic agenda, using this agenda as a standard for comparison.”