GOP pollster shares damning chart about Trump's economy

A GOP pollster shared an eye-popping chart about the state of President Donald Trump's economy on Tuesday.

Trump campaigned on a promise to revive the American manufacturing industry, primarily by imposing tariffs on imports from foreign countries and U.S. trade partners. However, Trump has lost considerable ground on achieving that goal after nearly a year in office, according to a chart shared on X by GOP pollster Frank Luntz.

"America is losing blue-collar jobs – something that last occurred during the early pandemic and the 2008-09 Great Recession. Employment across trades and industry is down -123,000 since early 2025, and has declined nearly every month since February," he wrote in a post accompanying the chart.

The chart was created by Joseph Politano, a monetary policy analyst who wrote a recent Substack essay about Trump's economy. It showed the economy has shed about 123,000 blue-collar jobs since early 2025, when Trump inherited the economy from former President Joe Biden.

Luntz noted that the last time America lost blue-collar jobs at this pace was during the 2008-2009 recession and the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In his analysis, Politano noted that the figures are "likely underselling the damage" to blue-collar industries such as construction, mining, and utilities.

Politano described the causes of the downturn as "multifaceted," and noted that "recent federal policy moves" have been "counterproductive."

"Tariffs are hurting blue-collar employment by raising the costs of manufacturing inputs," Politano wrote. "Immigration raids are disproportionately hurting the construction sector. Cuts to industrial policy subsidies have helped push factory construction down more than 8% over the last year. The administration’s desired 'blue-collar boom' is not happening; quite the opposite."