How Will President Trump Affect Your Money?

Contrary to what many Americans expected, early last week Donald Trump was elected as 45^th President of the United States. Regardless of how you voted, we’re sure that the majority of American citizens are concerned or at least curious about how a Trump presidency will, in fact, affect their money. Let’s take a look at some of the financial promises and proposals Trump made during his campaign.

Taxes

An issue that the majority of Americans are more than likely worried about. Taxes, how will Trump’s proposed cuts and increases affect them? Overall he plans to lower taxes for individuals and for businesses at all income levels. Although it seems that the biggest cuts will benefit the richest citizens and potentially hurt low-income families.

Part of Trump’s proposed taxes changes including cutting the current 7 individual tax rates down to 3, 12%, 25%, and 33%. He’s also looking to cut the current 35% tax rate for businesses down to 15%.

Minimum Wage

While Trump was campaigning one of the changes he proposed was increasing the current federal minimum wage to $10 an hour. But this is not a guarantee as he also proposed leaving that change up to the individual states, meaning there is no definitive answer on whether or not Trump will work to increase the standard of living for American minimum wage earners.

Student Loans

Surprisingly, to some, Trump had a lot to say about student loan debt during one of his campaign speeches. Again the majority of these proposed changes are just that, proposed, nothing had been set in stone yet. Here’s a list of the changes concerning college tuition and student loan debt that Trump spoke about during his campaign:

Trump spoke about making sure that colleges were held accountable should they not lower the cost of tuition.
He has addressed the tax-exempt status of college endowments and even warned that he may take that status away.
Trump also proposed decreasing the time period for student loan debt forgiveness from 20 years to 15 years.
He also addressed the idea of capping student loan repayment based on income.

If you’re interested in hearing more about what Trump has to say about the cost of higher education, you can check out his speech from October 14, 2016, in Columbus Ohio.

Paid Leave and Childcare Costs

One of Trumps many promises is to provide 6 weeks’ worth of paid maternity leave. If he is able to go forward with this promise many mothers will be able to benefit from it. But, it’s worth mentioning that it seems like fathers, adoptive parents and other forms of caregivers will not be able to benefit from this proposed change. Trump also touched on the idea of allowing parents to deduct certain expenses associated with raising their children, up to a certain percentage based on state averages.

Healthcare

Trump is not a fan of Obamacare, during this campaign he spoke about getting rid it all together and replacing it with a “free market” healthcare plan. He wants healthcare insurance providers to be able to sell their policies regardless of state lines and for those who choose to purchase healthcare outside of their jobs to be able to deduct their premium.

Social Security and Retirement

As of right now, Trump has proposed no specific changes or cuts to Social Security. He’ll more than likely need to at least address this issue once he takes over the White House in January.

Economic Growth

Throughout his campaign, Trump often spoke about supercharging the economy. He wants to create 25 million new jobs in the next decade, cut taxes, decrease certain regulations, and change the way the U.S handles foreign trade. His main goal is to put “America First” with his economic plan, but there have been no shortage of financial experts to step forward and warn that this type of plan may not work as well as Trump and his team expect.

As a side note, we believe that being as informed as possible about the issues that concern your life is one of the best things you can do for yourself. This article is meant to be a quick overview of a handful of the issues. We can’t recommend enough that you further research the issues that you’re the most concerned about, there are countless great and free articles online that can provide you with the information you want.