The middle class has been shrinking over the past few decades. According to the Pew Research Center, 61% of Americans lived in middle-class households in 1971, but by 2023, the share had fallen to 51%. Those who remain in the middle class may be finding it harder to make ends meet as inflation has brought up the cost of everything from buying a home to shopping for groceries.
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But Grant Cardone, private equity fund manager and real estate investor, believes that things will get better for the middle class during President Donald Trump’s second administration — here’s why.
Trump Will Reduce Taxes
Trump is planning to extend the provisions passed in his Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, a 2017 law that lowered tax rates for most Americans, which is currently set to expire at the end of 2025. He has also announced plans to eliminate federal income taxes.
“His No. 1 goal is to reduce taxes — that benefits the middle class,” Cardone told GOBankingRates while promoting his 10X California tour, which aims to get California voters to register as Republicans. “The middle class pay more of the tax burden in this country than anyone.
“Rich people don’t pay it,” he continued. “The super wealthy pay about 8% to 9% a year, and then the poor people pay somewhere below that. It’s the middle class that pay a majority of the taxes in this country.”
Less money spent on taxes would mean more money to save, invest or spend.
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Trump Will Eliminate Regulations That Hurt Small-Business Owners
Cardone believes there is too much red tape that exists that prevents businesses from growing, and therefore hiring.
“[Trump] is going to stop these crazy regulations,” he said. “Regulations are like a tax. The middle class pay for most of these crazy regulations — [there are] 32 million small businesses. They’re not Google and Apple. They’re small-business owners.”
Cardone said that regulations hampered his own business growth when he was just starting out.
“When I started my company, I had one employee — it was me. Then I had three,” he said. “And everything cost me something. I have to watch everything. So every regulation cost me.”
Eliminating red tape is particularly urgent in Los Angeles, where regulations may prevent people from rebuilding their homes as quickly as possible, Cardone said. This, in turn, would hurt the local small businesses.
“[Let’s say] you’re a laundromat or a small boutique clothing operation, you’re in Malibu right now,” Cardone said. “Your place didn’t burn down, but you lost 120 homes of people that used to come to your store. If the regulations get in the way of them rebuilding, the small boutique clothing store in Malibu is not going to have any money or income for the next who knows [how long].”
Editor’s note on political coverage: GOBankingRates is nonpartisan and strives to cover all aspects of the economy objectively and present balanced reports on politically focused finance stories. You can find more coverage of this topic on GOBankingRates.com.
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This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: 2 Ways Trump’s Presidency Will Benefit the Middle Class, According to Grant Cardone
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