While GOP members of Congress wanted to pass their tax plan, they aimed to sell it on benefits for average Americans. Certainly, tax experts argued that low-income workers would hardly benefit at all. Meanwhile, anyone who crunched the numbers saw that CEOs and the richest Americans (including Donald Trump) would be the big winners.
Yet still Paul Ryan said Corporate America, which got a 40% reduction in its tax rate, would pass along its newfound riches to employees. Ryan released a statement saying his party’s plan would “create jobs, increase wages for workers, and level the playing field.”
There was one problem: The GOP tax plan provided no guarantees for workers. If a company wanted to lay off thousands of employees, “tax reform” allowed them to do it. For companies that wanted to pocket the money and boost their stock price, they could do that, too. Or they could just offshore the jobs to Asia.
Well, all those things happened. Within weeks of the tax bill passing, America’s richest corporations started laying off workers. By the third week of January, it had become a feeding frenzy, with one company saying it would lay off over 5,000 employees and use its tax cut for “restructuring.” Somehow, it doesn’t sound like a great deal for American workers.
Here are 11 U.S. companies that started firing employees right after they got their tax cut.
1. Pfizer
Pfizer said it would eliminate 300 jobs in New England. | Spencer Platt/Getty Images
If you need a summary of the state of U.S. healthcare and/or employment, simply check the plans Pfizer announced in January 2018. According to Reuters, the company valued at $53 billion will cut 300 research jobs in New England.
Those employees conducted tests on drugs aimed at treating Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. Pfizer, which will continue down the usual track with drugs like Viagra, is set to save billions from Trump’s tax cuts.
Next: Trump spoke too soon about this company’s moves after the tax cuts passed.
2. AT&T
AT&T laid off hundreds of employees in Missouri just before Christmas 2017. | Etienne FRANCHI/Getty Images
“AT&T plans to increase U.S. capital spending $1 billion and provide $1,000 special bonus to more than 200,000 U.S. employees, and that’s because of what we did,” Trump told the nation on December 20.
That same night, hundreds of AT&T employees in Missouri learned they were being fired just in time for Christmas. Trump did not follow up with a statement on that development, but the local union president did.
“How can you lay people off and then give them $1,000 and say that there’s going to be more jobs available? I wish someone could tell me how that’s possible,” said Joseph Blanco of the Communication Workers of America Union.
AT&T continued announcing layoffs into the new year. At last count, some 4,000 people were expected to lose their jobs. A lawsuit filed in Texas will challenge the legality of over 700 layoffs in that state.
Next: This $42 billion company announced it will lay off at least 5,000 U.S. employees while closing 10 plants.
3. Kimberly-Clark
The maker of Kleenex said it would shut down 10 factories in 2018 .| Kimberly-Clark Corp. via Getty Images
This one will affect a large number of communities. Kimberly-Clark, the $42 billion company behind Huggies diapers and Kleenex tissues, said it would shut down 10 factories and lay off up between 5,000 and 5,500 workers in 2018, the Washington Post reported on January 23. The Dallas-based company spoke in very globalist terms about the move, which affects 13% of its employees.
“We anticipate ongoing annual cash flow benefits from tax reform,” CFO Maria Henry said in a conference call. Henry added that Kimberly-Clark now had the “flexibility to continue to allocate significant capital to shareholders” during its “restructuring program.”
So shareholders will get more money while thousands of workers get pink slips. These jobs won’t come back, and businesses near the shuttered factories will feel the impact, too.
Next: One of America’s most hated corporations couldn’t help laying off hundreds of employees before Christmas.
4. Comcast
Comcast fired 500 employees shortly before Christmas 2017. | Joe Raedle/Getty Images
What was a $199 billion company to do? Tax reform obviously had the votes in the GOP Congress and would pass. In Comcast’s case, the company stood to gain over $12 billion in a single year.
So the corporation quietly fired over 500 sales employees in the Southeast and Midwest, the Philadelphia Inquirer confirmed. Those cuts came right before Christmas.
Comcast said the $1,000 bonus it splashed across the news would serve as severance for the laid-off employees. However, we learned the real benefits of tax reform in the final week of January.
Comcast raised stockholder dividend payouts 21% and said it will do $5 billion in stock buybacks in 2018. Compared to the $171 million it spent on employee bonuses, the cable giant spent 30 times as much on shareholders.
Next: You knew America’s biggest employer couldn’t resist a few thousand layoffs after the tax plan windfall.
5. Walmart
Walmart announced it would close 63 Sam’s Club stores. | Scott Olson/Getty Images
With Walmart, the country’s biggest employer, there were a couple of stories going around. First, we heard the company’s decision to raise the minimum wage for some employees and give bonuses to others. This bit of PR-bait made it all the way to the White House, and Trump celebrated. However, there was bad news that same day.
On January 11, the company abruptly closed 63 of its Sam’s Club stores, affecting thousands of employees. The company said some employees could find work in other locations; others wouldn’t. Apparently, the $313 billion company’s newfound billions could not protect a few thousand low-wage jobs.
But weren’t those wage hikes were a huge success for tax reform? “Given how low unemployment is, they would have had to hike wages anyway,” Brian Yarbrough, an Edward Jones analyst, told Reuters. “The tax bill just made that move easier.”
Next: The tech sector had a hard time weathering the storm caused by the added billions as well.
6. Microsoft
Microsoft laid off hundreds in January 2018. | jejim/iStock/Getty Images
When you’re a tech giant with a market cap over $700 billion, you have to play it safe with employment levels. After all, Microsoft could repatriate $128 billion to the U.S. at discount tax rates.
None of that was enough to save “hundreds of employees” who got the axe in the final week of January. It’s almost as if corporate spending on development and workers had nothing to do with tax reform.
Next: Tax reform couldn’t save an extra 700 layoffs at this health care company.
7. Tenet Healthcare
Health care jobs were eliminated | Miya227/iStock/Getty Images
Several strange things happened with Tenet Healthcare, a company worth billions, both before and after Congress passed the tax plan. First, the company announced it would raise the number of jobs it was eliminating from 1,300 to 2,000 employees, with several hundred coming at Detroit Medical Center. The following day, the company’s stock price began a climb that left shares up nearly 25% within two weeks.
When people warned that CEOs would simply take the extra millions from tax reform and throw it on top of the pile, they were probably referring to this type of scenario.
Next: This European company took its tax plan windfall and eliminated dozens of Indiana workers.
8. Schneider Electric
The CEO of French electrical equipment giant Schneider Electric, Jean-Pascal Tricoire, speaks during the group’s general assembly on April 25, 2017. | Eric Piermont/AFP/Getty Images
If Indiana workers didn’t like the deal Trump and Vice President Mike Pence made with Carrier, maybe they hoped for better from European company Schneider Electric. After all, foreign investors were set to pocket $70 billion in just one year under the tax plan.
Unfortunately, in yet another sign capital investment and taxes are unrelated, Schneider announced 61 workers at an Indiana facility would lose their jobs in 2018.
Next: This $204 billion company couldn’t afford to keep 53 Atlanta-area employees.
9. Coca Cola
Coca Cola laid off dozens at a Georgia plant. | George Frey/Getty Images
When you hear of a company with a $204 billion market cap letting 53 employees go, you have to really worry about its state of affairs. If so, direct your concerns toward Coca Cola, the beverage giant that took its tax cut and laid off dozens of employees from a Georgia plant.
Reductions in the corporate tax rate (now way down at 20%) allow Coke executives to play with billions, but these low-wage jobs simply could not be saved.
Next: Speaking of Carrier, do you hear how many jobs the company eliminated in January 2018?
10. Carrier
Renee Elliott, 44, address a news conference on January 10, 2018, a day before she was to be laid off from her job at a Carrier factory in Indianapolis, Indiana. | NOVA SAFO/AFP/Getty Images
You may remember the Carrier episode from December 2016 in a few different ways. For Trump and Pence, it was a great day for America as the company got a $7 million tax break in exchange for keeping a few hundred jobs in Indiana.
Those who worked inside the plant saw it a different way: as a PR spectacle that meant nothing when it came to saving jobs.
One year later, with its corporate tax rate slashed, Carrier laid off 215 employees in January 2018. Those jobs went directly to Mexico, where workers will earn $3 per hour, Reuters reported.
Next: Dozens of employees won’t run on Dunkin’ anymore.
11. Dunkin’ Donuts
Dunkin’ Donuts said it would eliminate 40 jobs. | iStock/Getty Images
Finally, we close with Dunkin’ brands, a company with a $6 billion market cap. In total, the company said it would eliminate 40 jobs that are currently filled and leave another 40 unfilled jobs that way around the globe.
Apparently, those millions in saved taxes won’t help the company keep its U.S. employees — or fill jobs that it had staffed in the past. If we didn’t know any better, we’d say corporations didn’t think about employees when it planned what to do with their money.
Study: International Students Avoiding U.S. Graduate Schools
"And even more winning..."
By Katie Pickrell | Feb 08, 2018
International students vote with their feet. For the first time in more than a decade, university admissions officials reported a decrease in the number of applications to graduate school programs from international students, according to a recent Council of Graduate Schools study. Researchers found that international graduate applications declined by 3 percent and first-time enrollments declined by 1 percent from the fall of 2016 to the fall of 2017.
The study singled out new immigration policies, such as Trump’s eight-country travel ban, as a major factor discouraging international students from studying in the United States. “The graduate education community remains concerned that the ban—in its substance and rhetoric—might have hampered the global competitiveness of the United States and its ability to attract the best and brightest prospective international graduate students,” researchers found.
The sharpest decreases occurred among Middle Eastern and North African students: In the fall of 2017, applications from those countries declined 17 percent. University officials also saw an 18 percent decrease in applications from Iranian students (first-time enrollment decreased by 16 percent). Applications from Saudi Arabian students also decreased by 21 percent, but Saudi students accepted offers to study in the United States at a significantly higher rate than Iranian students (40 percent compared with 17 percent), suggesting that Trump’s travel ban and his harsh rhetoric toward Iran may have alienated Iranian students. Applications from Canadian, Chinese, Indian, and Mexican students applying to American graduate programs also declined.
The only increase in applications came from European students (up by 18 percent) and students from sub-Saharan African countries (up by 12 percent).
Although overall applications declined in fall 2017, international acceptances rose slightly compared with the previous academic year, from 16 percent to 17 percent. The study credits efforts made by individual institutions “to ensure that [students] feel welcome” despite the uncertainty surrounding U.S. immigration policy.
There are currently more than one million international students (about 25 percent of all graduate students) enrolled in American colleges; ten years ago, there were fewer than 650,000.
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