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America First Agenda: The rest of the story

Do you remember Paul Harvey (1918–2009), an iconic American radio broadcaster who created and hosted “The Rest of the Story,” a distinctive program featuring forgotten true stories about famous people and events, with key details revealed at the conclusion?

The “America First” Agenda: Background and Economic Impacts

The “America First” agenda represents a set of economic and policy priorities championed by the Trump administration, beginning in 2017 and continuing into 2025. This framework emphasizes tax cuts, deregulation, energy dominance, immigration restrictions, and trade protectionism as mechanisms to boost American economic prosperity and worker wages.

Background on the America First Agenda

The America First approach grew out of Trump’s campaign platform and was implemented through several major legislative and executive actions. The cornerstone fiscal policy was the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) of 2017, which reduced corporate tax rates from 35% to 21%, modified individual income tax brackets, expanded business deductions (particularly the Section 199A pass-through deduction set at 20%), and eliminated the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate penalty.^[1]^[2]^[3]

The 2025 version of the America First agenda has extended and expanded these core tax provisions, making the TCJA tax cuts permanent and further reducing corporate rates and expanding pass-through deductions. The agenda prioritizes other objectives including border security, energy production expansion, reduction of federal spending, and elimination of regulations deemed burdensome.^[4]

Impact on Income and Wages

Initial Period (2017-2019)

During the first Trump administration, the administration and its supporters cited rapid income growth. According to the Heritage Foundation and Republican data, median household income rose by approximately $5,003 between January 2017 and mid-2019. The Ways and Means Committee reported that real wages grew 4.9% in 2018-2019, the fastest two-year growth in 20 years, with workers in the lowest income decile seeing approximately 50% higher wage growth than those in the highest decile.^[5]^[6]^[7]

However, independent analysis tells a more nuanced story. The Congressional Budget Office and Tax Policy Center found that while all income groups saw tax reductions initially in 2019, the distribution was unequal. The bottom quintile (those earning less than $25,000) received an average tax cut of $50 or 0.3% of after-tax income, while those in the 95th to 99th income percentile received approximately $12,000 or 3.5% of after-tax income.^[8]^[1]

Longer-Term Trends and Current Analysis

Critical analysis suggests that income gains for lower and middle-income workers were temporary and driven largely by unusually tight labor markets rather than sustained structural improvements. A 2024 analysis by The Conversation found that the 2017 tax cuts made income inequality worse and disproportionately harmed Black Americans, with the bottom 90% of wage earners seeing no real wage gains when corporate tax cuts and stock market wealth were considered.^[9]

Recent research from Yale’s Budget Lab indicates that 2025 tariffs imposed as part of the broader America First trade policy have created significant headwinds. All 2025 tariffs combined increase consumer prices by approximately 2.3% in the short run, representing an average loss of $3,800 per household in purchasing power, with bottom-income households losing $1,700 annually. This directly erodes any earlier wage gains, particularly for lower-income Americans.^[10]

Impact on Taxes by Income Level

2017 Tax Cuts Implementation

The TCJA’s distributional effects varied significantly by income level. At passage in 2019, taxpayers earned up to $25,000 saw their federal tax rate fall by 0.4 percentage points—the smallest reduction. The top 1% saw their effective tax rates drop by approximately 0.8 percentage points, while the most dramatic benefits went to those earning $307,900 to $732,000, whose rates fell by 3.1 percentage points.^[11]^[8]

2025 Tax Policy and the Extended TCJA

The recent extension of TCJA provisions into 2025 continues this pattern of unequal benefits. According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, extending the TCJA will raise taxes on the poorest 40% of Americans and barely cut them for the middle 20%, while the richest 1% benefit more than the bottom 80% combined in 2026.^[12]

Specifically, the bottom income quintile (those making $28,600 or less annually) will receive an average tax cut of approximately $110, while those in the second quintile ($28,600-$55,100) receive about $510. In stark contrast, the top 1% (making over $914,900) will receive average tax cuts of $80,680 annually. The new pass-through deduction increased from 20% to 23%, overwhelmingly benefiting wealthy business owners, with White taxpayers receiving substantially larger benefits than Black and Hispanic taxpayers despite comparable population percentages.^[13]^[12]

Looking forward to 2027, when many TCJA provisions are set to expire, the Tax Policy Center estimates that 50% of taxpayers will face tax increases, with the lowest-income quintile experiencing an average tax increase of about $200 and the middle quintile seeing little change, while top earners continue to receive cuts.^[8]

Impact on Health Insurance Costs

ACA Individual Mandate Repeal

One of the most consequential health care impacts of the America First agenda was the elimination of the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate penalty through the TCJA. This provision had immediate and substantial effects on health insurance costs, particularly for lower-income Americans.^[1]

The Congressional Budget Office estimated that repealing the individual mandate would result in 13 million fewer people with health insurance by 2027. The mandate repeal increased non-group market premiums by approximately 10%, as younger and healthier individuals—who faced no financial incentive to maintain coverage—dropped out of the insurance pool, leaving a sicker, more expensive risk pool.^[14]^[1]

Income-Level Disparities in Health Insurance Impacts

The impact of the mandate repeal fell most heavily on lower-income Americans. Research demonstrates that the individual mandate had its strongest positive effect on insurance enrollment among lower-income populations, with effects diminishing as income increased. When the mandate was repealed, lower-income individuals were more likely to forgo coverage, particularly those earning between 138% and 400% of the federal poverty level, who lacked access to either free Medicaid or heavily subsidized marketplace plans.^[15]^[16]

The Congressional Budget Office estimated that eliminating the individual mandate would reduce government spending on healthcare subsidies for lower-income persons by up to $338 billion ($415 billion in 2024 dollars) during 2018-2027, primarily through reduced insurance marketplace participation among lower-income households. By 2021, the CBO estimated that 7 million additional people had become uninsured compared to if the mandate had remained in place.^[1]

Current 2025 Health Insurance Costs

In 2025, average monthly premiums on the ACA Marketplace range from approximately $380 for Bronze plans to over $510 for Gold plans, representing about a 7% increase from 2024 due to rising medical and prescription costs. However, enhanced subsidies under the Inflation Reduction Act have helped offset premium increases for lower-income enrollees making below 400% of federal poverty level.^[17]

Broader Economic Inequality Effects

The America First agenda’s tax and spending policies have demonstrably increased wealth and income inequality. During 2017-2019, the bottom 50% of households saw a 40% increase in real net worth, but this masked a widening gap. By 2024-2025, analysis shows that the benefits to lower-income Americans proved temporary, with gains concentrated among wealthy shareholders and business owners.^[18]^[12]^[9]

The 2025 tariff implementation—a core America First policy—creates additional regressive impacts. Working-class families at the bottom of the income distribution face annual losses of $1,700 from tariffs alone, compared to average losses of $3,800 across all households.^[10]

Summary

The America First agenda has produced starkly unequal economic outcomes across income levels. While temporarily boosting median wages during 2017-2019 through labor market tightness, the underlying tax structure and current 2025 implementation continue to concentrate benefits among the wealthy while imposing net costs on lower- and middle-income Americans. Health insurance costs have risen for lower-income populations due to the individual mandate repeal, while tax policy extends through 2025 benefits disproportionately to top earners and corporations. The inflationary effects of 2025 tariffs further erode purchasing power for lower-income households, suggesting the agenda’s core promise of broad-based prosperity remains unrealized for most Americans outside the top income quintiles.

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