Blue-collar wage growth under Trump sees largest increase in nearly 60 years: Bessent

Blue-collar workers have seen real wage growth of almost two percent in the first five months of President Donald Trump’s second term, the largest increase for any administration in nearly 60 years. 

The 1.7% pay bump is in stark contrast to negative growth under Joe Biden, according to new data from the US Department of the Treasury. 

Since Richard Nixon in 1969, Trump has been the only president to record positive growth for blue-collar workers in his first five months. He also achieved 1.3% in his first term.

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The recovery from a 1.7% decline recorded in Biden’s first five months, as inflation outpaced earnings, suggests a shift in economic conditions for this financially stressed segment of the workforce.

“The only other time it’s been this high was… during President Trump’s first term,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told me on the latest episode of the “Pod Force One” podcast, out Wednesday. 

“We’ve seen real wages for hourly workers, non-supervisory workers, rise almost 2% in the first five months. … No president has done that before.”

Falling inflation has driven the significant improvement in blue-collar wages, lifting workers’ take-home pay and living standards. 

Bessent says wage growth is also fueled by the president’s “emphasis on manufacturing” and commitment to remove illegal migrants from the workforce.

“Biden opened the border, and it was flooded,” said Bessent. “And for working Americans, that’s a disaster because it’s pressure on their wages.”

The latest year-to-date gain in real blue-collar wage growth, from December 2024 to May 2025, is more than twice the rate of 0.8% growth in the Nixon administration.

Every other administration since has seen wage growth fall in comparable periods for blue-collar workers (defined by the Bureau of Labor Statistics as nonsupervisory and production workers). 

Barack Obama presided over a decline of 0.3% in real blue-collar wage growth in 2009, Bill Clinton (1993) and George W. Bush (2001) each saw a 0.6% decline, Ronald Reagan (1981) saw the sector’s wage growth fall 0.9%, and George H.W. Bush (1989) registered a 3.0% drop. Under Carter (1977), blue-collar wages stagnated with zero growth. 

Trump’s team claims that once the “One Big Beautiful Bill” passes the Senate, as early as July, the economy will get a “double whammy” boon of lower inflation and accelerating wages, a feature of his first term. 

The budget reconciliation bill includes targeted relief for unskilled or blue-collar workers promised by Trump during last year’s presidential campaign, including “no tax on tips.”

The bill would also eliminate federal income taxes on overtime pay for over 80 million hourly workers in industries like manufacturing, construction, and first responders who often rely on overtime for income.

Tax incentives for manufacturers to build US factories are also intended to create up to 6 million blue-collar jobs in construction and manufacturing, reversing decades of offshoring.