Hello and welcome to Background Briefing, available 24-7 at Background Briefing.org.

I'm Ian Masters, and today we'll look into a number of stories and issues in the news.

We'll begin on this Labor Day with the State of Working America, which is under assault from

Trump in Project 2025, even as Trump's groveling lackey, the Secretary of Labor, in a cabinet

meeting, praises her dear leader telling him, quote, Mr. President, I invite you to see your big, beautiful face on a banner in front of the Department of Labor

because you are really the transformational president of the American worker.

Joining us to assess the losses and gains of Labor in the Second Trump nightmare is Stephen Greenhouse, a senior fellow at the

Century Foundation, who was previously a reporter for the New York Times where he covered

labor and the workplace for 19 years.

He has served as a business and economics reporter and a diplomatic and foreign correspondent

and is the author of The Big Squeeze, Tough Times for the American Worker,

and Beaten Down, worked up the past, present and future of American labor.

And his latest article of The Guardian is,

Trump's presidential philosophy is government by shakedown.

Then we'll examine how inequality has been turbocharged by Trump and Project 2025 as billionaires

by our politics with the greatest transfer of wealth from the poor and middle class to the

super rich underway.

Joining us as Sylvia Allegretto, a labor economist and senior economist at the Center for Economic

and Policy Research. She has co-authored several editions of the state of working America, and

a research interests include long-term unemployment, family budgets, teacher pay, public

employee compensation, low wage labor markets, inequality, and minimum wages.

And she has an article at the Center for Economic and

...