Economy savior Donald Trump causes federal firings to increase an eye-watering 41,311% over his first 2 months

The first two months under Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s governance have left us with a stock market crash, an isolated United States facing multiple united fronts in our former allies, and the firing of tens of thousands of federal workers across 17 agencies. But if you ask the president, this is clearly Canada’s fault, or the European Union’s, or practically any other country with universal healthcare, better cheese, and a half-decent social security program.

The U.S. economy was on the recovery path following a recessionary period during the COVID-19 pandemic. In Q4 2024, Wall Street was keen to have Trump back, if only due to the promise of lower taxes and less regulation for businesses. Then the inauguration happened, and the 47th barreled forward with aggressive isolationist policies like verbal jabs, outright threats, and tariffs on most of the U.S.’s biggest commercial partners. The POTUS wakes up one day imposing back-breaking tariffs on Canada, the European Union, and China, and then backtracks on it the moment he receives a positive signal from their respective political parties aboard, and then does this all over again when he realizes they’re not just going to roll over and take his strong-armed tactics.

Now the market is experiencing what the brains behind the helm call a “correction,” though one that augurs disaster if Trump continues down this path. But that doesn’t even begin to address the elephant in the room, which has manifested as the second-most divisive person in the country, who also happens to be the richest man in the world. Back during his first tenure, it was only the president’s senseless trade wars the economy had to brace against, but now we have Elon Musk’s DOGE, which, over the past two months, has systematically gone over all the federal bureaus and fired more than 60,000 workers.

That marks a staggering 41,311% increase from the layoffs in 2023. I can’t wrap my head around that number, but not only has it disrupted the workflow of government, which further punishes a stressed economy, but it has also caused job insecurity to tear through the highest levels of the administrative branch and the unemployment rate to rise drastically.

Elon employed the same tactic when he bought Twitter in 2022 and changed its name to X. He somehow managed to get away with firing 6,000 people, which comprised more than 80% of the company’s labor force back then, but while the social media platform survived the tycoon’s harsh ministrations, it’s ludicrous to presume he could do the same to the United States government and get any tangible results.

Musk is doing all of this under the guise of making the government more efficient and cutting down on bureaucracy, not to mention helping with the budget deficit and the staggering $36 trillion national debt that the government keeps accumulating year after year. The only snag is that DOGE’s efforts so far have barely made a dent in that number.

If Musk truly believes he can save trillions of dollars by ruining the lives of tens of thousands of people and damaging the economy in the long run with unemployment, then he’s either entirely delusional or purposefully misleading the public. The more likely scenario, of course, is that the tech mogul is only using this as a pretext to purge the government and replace its staff with MAGA loyalists.