From manufacturing, to infrastructure, to coal, to raising the minimum wage, here's where Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton stand on a variety of workplace and job creation issues.

And if you're interested in learning where they stand on other issues, you can check out our prior examinations of their stances on trade, terrorism, health care, abortion, and guns.

Jobs: Where do Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton stand?

By Sabrina Eaton

September 5, 2016

As we approach Labor Day, a holiday created by unions, Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton are both casting themselves as the only presidential candidate who can revive the nation’s economy and create jobs. Here’s how each candidate plans to accomplish that feat.

(Lisa DeJong, The Plain Dealer)

Don't Edit

Both say infrastructure spending will boost jobs

Both Trump and Clinton say they'd like to create jobs through infrastructure spending.



Clinton says she'd spend $275 billion over five years as part of a "comprehensive agenda to create the next generation of good-paying jobs." She'd pay for the improvements with business tax reforms.

"I want to fix our schools, our bridges, our roads, our ports, our airports, our water systems. Donald Trump wants to build a wall," Clinton said in a California speech.



Trump says he wants to spend "at least double" what Clinton wants to spend on infrastructure, and that his plan will "provide the growth to boost our infrastructure, Hillary Clinton's will not."

He told Fox Business News he’d finance his public works program by creating an infrastructure fund supported through bonds that would be sold to investors.

“Our infrastructure is that of a third-world country,” Trump said in a July speech. “Not anymore. And I'm very good at building. Remember that. And I build under-time and under-budget. Very important. You don't hear that from government very often.”

(Steven Senne, Associated Press )

Don't Edit

Trump wants more coal jobs, Clinton seeks alternatives

Another way Trump says he'll bring back jobs is "by unleashing an American energy revolution, lifting restrictions on oil, and coal, and natural gas, and all sources of American energy."



"Hillary Clinton says she wants to put a lot of coal miners out of business," says Trump, who handed supporters "Trump Digs Coal" signs at the GOP convention in Cleveland. "She wants to put them out of business. We're going to protect our coal miners."



Clinton has released a detailed "fact sheet" on how she intends to revitalize coal communities. It involves diversifying the local economy rather than increasing coal mining.



Noting that demand for coal has been reduced globally by the rise of other power sources, Clinton says she'd spend $30 billion "to ensure that coal miners and their families get the benefits they've earned and respect they deserve, to invest in economic diversification and job creation, and to make coal communities an engine of US economic growth in the 21st century as they have been for generations."



Clinton says she'll partner with local entrepreneurs, community leaders, foundations and labor groups to make federal investments that help people to find good jobs where they live. She said her efforts will include infrastructure projects, repurposing land mines and power sites, and providing tax credits for companies who make long-term investments in hard-hit coal communities.

(David Goldman, Associated Press)

Don't Edit

Both seek to boost manufacturing jobs

Trump says that rejecting the pending Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal and renegotiating other trade deals that cost the United States jobs will help restore jobs in the nation’s manufacturing sector.

"Ohio and the Akron area have lost nearly one-third of the manufacturing jobs since NAFTA. One-third, think of that, and getting worse," Trump told an audience in Akron. "This region and this state have lost nearly one in four manufacturing jobs since China entered the World Trade Organization… We're bringing jobs back to our country. We're not going to let people take our jobs anymore. We're not going to let our jobs go to other countries anymore.

See also: Trade: Where do Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton stand

Clinton says she’ll strengthen American manufacturing with a $10 billion “Make it in America” plan that would bring together workers and labor, business, universities, community colleges, and government "at every level to harness the strength of manufacturing communities across America.”

According to Clinton's website, businesses that take part will pledge not to shift jobs or profits from these partnerships overseas.

She also calls for creating tax incentives to encourage investment in communities that have faced or are about to face significant manufacturing job losses.

“We're going to stop giving tax breaks to corporations that out- source jobs and profits,” she told a Cleveland audience last month. “We're going to reward those who invest in their employees again. If corporations move their headquarters overseas, we're going to slap an exit tax on them and try to persuade them not to move.”

(C.H.Pete Copeland, The Plain Dealer)

Don't Edit

Trump calls for regulatory reforms

Trump says America's employment rolls will increase if he eliminates "regulations that kill American jobs." More specifically, he has promised to target regulations imposed by the 2010 Dodd-Frank law, which set up the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to police the providers of financial products, such as mortgages.



Trump also says he'll eliminate "anti-energy" regulations imposed by the Obama administration, such as the Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Power Plan, which forces investment in renewable energy at the expense of fossil fuels. He says that will raise energy bills and cost jobs.



"We're going to cancel every needless job-killing regulation and put a moratorium on new regulations until our economy gets back on its feet," Trump told a Florida audience in August. "And even then, they're not going to be brought back."



Clinton says she wants to impose further regulations on Wall Street, arguing the banking system is still "too complex and too risky," even after the Dodd-Frank law's implementation.



Her plans for tackling this issue include imposing a tax on high frequency trading, and requiring that banks that suffer major losses not reward their senior managers with big bonuses.



She'd also like to give regulators more authority to force banks, hedge funds and other financial institutions to reorganize, downsize or break up.

(Pablo Martinez Monsivais, Associated Press)

Don't Edit

Don't Edit

Trump wants to end estate taxes, Clinton wants to expand them

Trump wants to end the estate tax, arguing that it hurts family-owned businesses.



"You have a business, you want to leave that business to your children, you've been paying taxes all your life on that business and now the children have to pay so much that normally they have to either sell the business or close it up," Trump told a Florida crowd in August. "It's not a fair tax."



Clinton wants to expand the estate tax, contending that Trump's desire to eliminate it is self-serving. Last month, she told a Cleveland audience that if Trump is as wealthy as he claims, ending the estate tax would "save the Trump family $4 billion and do absolutely nothing for 99.8 percent of all Americans."



She says she'd lower the level of exemptions $3.5 million for individuals and $7 million for a couple, but increase the tax rate to 45 percent on affected estates.

“Donald Trump doesn't need a tax cut, I don't need a tax cut,” she continued. “It's time for the wealthiest Americans, whoever you are, as well as corporations and Wall Street to pay your fair share in taxes. You have been successful in this country because of everything this country represents.”

(Seth Perlman, Associated Press)

Don't Edit

Where do they stand on other taxes?

Clinton has called for increasing taxes on the wealthy – establishing a top rate of 43.6 percent – while keeping rates the same for middle-class and lower-income taxpayers.



She wants to simplify and cut taxes for small businesses, crack down on tax gaming and close loopholes.

“I'm the only candidate who ran in either of the Democratic or the Republican primary who said from the very beginning, I will not raise taxes on the middle class,” Clinton told a Cleveland audience in August. “The middle class has to catch up to they were before the Great Recession.”

An analysis of Clinton's tax plan by the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution says her tax proposals would boost federal revenue by $1.1 trillion over the next 10 years. She has proposed using that money to cover other programs she'd like to launch, which would mean her plans wouldn't add to the deficit.



Trump argues that high taxes and excessive regulation push jobs overseas, reduce wages and harm the economy. He is pushing a tax reform plan that he calls "the biggest tax reform since Reagan"



He'd like to reduce the number of tax brackets from seven to three, with a top tax rate of 33 percent. Under his plan, all corporate taxes would be cut to 15 percent.



"My tax reforms will add millions of new jobs and thousands of new small businesses," Trump told an audience in Wilmington, Ohio.



An analysis of Trump's tax plan by the same group predicted it would cut federal revenue by $9.5 trillion over the next 10 years, and double budget deficits over that period without commensurate spending cuts. Trump has said the shortfall will be offset by growth his plan would generate.

(Seth Perlman, Associated Press)

Don't Edit

Allison Carey/The Plain Dealer

Both pledge to boost small business

Trump says his plans to reform government regulations, simplify the tax code and reduce the business tax rate to 15 percent will help small businesses, which he says are "being driven into extinction by what's happening in our government."



"My tax reforms will add millions of new jobs and thousands of new small businesses," Trump told an audience in Wilmington, Ohio. "My regulatory reforms will make it easier for small businesses to thrive, including millions of minority-owned businesses and small businesses»all across the country. So important: jobs, jobs, jobs."

Clinton says she wants to be "a small business president" telling audiences her father was a small businessman and that she believes that "in America, if you can dream it, you should be able to build it."

Clinton says her plans to help small businesses include cutting red tape, expanding access to capital, expanding access to new markets, and providing tax relief and tax simplification.

She says a series of lawsuits filed against Trump over his failure to pay businesses that performed work for his company shows he's made "a career out of stiffing small businesses from Atlantic City to Las Vegas."

“A lot of those companies scraped together what they could to pay their employees, and many of them put their businesses at risk and someone of them ended up taking bankruptcy,” she said. “It wasn't because Trump couldn't pay them. It was because he wouldn't pay them and that's why I take it personally.”

Trump has said that complaints of nonpayment from his contractors resulted from disputes over work performance.

"Let's say that they do a job that's not good, or a job that they didn't finish, or a job that was way late. I'll deduct from their contract, absolutely," Trump told USA Today. "That's what the country should be doing."

(The Plain Dealer, Allison Carey)

Don't Edit

Clinton backs minimum wage increase

Clinton favors raising the federal minimum wage to $12, and supports localized efforts that would raise it higher, including the Fight for $15 drive in the Cleveland area. She also backs the Obama administration's decision to raise the salary threshold to $47,476 for workers who get mandatory overtime.



Trump has issued conflicting statements about the minimum wage. According to chronology of his statements compiled by The Washington Post, in August 2015, he said the federal minimum wage – currently $7.25 per hour – should stay where it is, suggesting that's needed for the United States to remain competitive with other countries.



Later on, he said he'd be "open" to increasing it, telling interviewers that he thinks $10 hourly might be appropriate. A Trump aide told the publication it shouldn't go as high as $15, because that would become "a barrier to entry-level employment."

“I don’t know how people make it on $7.25 an hour,” Trump told NBC’s Chuck Todd. “Now, with that being said, I would like to see an increase of some magnitude. But I’d rather leave it to the states. Let the states decide. Because don’t forget, the states have to compete with each other.”

(Photo courtesy of SEIU District 1199)

Don't Edit

Both promise help with child care costs

Both candidates say they want to help working families with the high cost of child care, which consumes at least 30 percent of a minimum-wage worker's paycheck everywhere in the country.

Trump wants provide a child care tax deduction capped at the average care cost in a taxpayer’s state of residence. He says lower-income taxpayers could take the deduction against their payroll taxes.

In August, Trump told the Detroit Economic Club that he and his daughter, Ivanka, have been developing more proposals that would “increase choice and reduce costs in child care, offering much-needed relief to American families,” but they’ll be released at a later date

"Childcare is now the single greatest expense for most American families — even exceeding the cost of housing in much of the country," says a statement on Trump's website. "Trump will allow families to exclude childcare costs from income, benefiting every family. Hillary will not."

Clinton – and many analysts – say the plan Trump has described so far would mostly benefit affluent families because many working-class households don't pay any federal income tax, and those that do usually take the standard deduction rather than itemizing their expenses.



"Right now, child care costs as much as in state college tuition in most of the country," Clinton told a Scranton audience as she pooh-poohed Trump's proposal. "So we need real solutions that will work for working people, not just the well-off."

Clinton's plan calls for capping child care expenses at 10 percent of a household's income, using tax credits and subsidized child care. She also wants to increase the availability of child care for parents who are college students, provide higher to child care workers, increase spending on the Head Start program and make preschool universal for every 4-year-old.

(Chuck Crow, The Plain Dealer)

Don't Edit

Don't Edit

Lisa DeJong

Clinton backs paid family leave

In addition to subsidizing child care, Clinton says she would guarantee up to 12 weeks of paid family leave that workers could use to care for a new child or a seriously ill family member, and up to 12 weeks of medical leave to recover from serious illnesses.

"We're going to fight for paid family leave because sometimes you need to take care of your child or your spouse or sick parent, and you should not lose your job for taking care of the loved ones," Clinton said in her Scranton speech.



She said her program would ensure that Americans get at least two thirds of their wages while un leave, up to a ceiling, and would impose no additional costs on businesses, large or small.

Her effort would be paid for through tax reforms "that ensure the wealthiest Americans pay their fair share," her campaign website says.

Trump hasn’t said much about the issue. In an October appearance on Fox Business Network, Trump said paid family leave is something “that’s being discussed.”

“I think we have to keep our country very competitive, so you have to be careful of it, but certainly there are a lot of people discussing it,” he said when queried by Fox’s Stuart Varney.

(Lisa DeJong, The Plain Dealer)

Don't Edit

Organized labor backs Clinton

While Trump has tried to appeal to organized labor by attacking trade agreements it opposes, such as NAFTA – which was passed under the presidency of Clinton's husband, Bill - most unions have lined up behind Clinton, who says she'd like to renegotiate the agreement.



Clinton also says she wants to restore collective bargaining rights, invest in worker training programs and strengthen overtime rules.



Large unions that endorsed Clinton include the National Education Association, the Service Employees International Union, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, United Steelworkers, United Auto Workers,and the AFL-CIO.



"Donald Trump has repeated outsourced jobs to line his own pockets," AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said in a Democratic National Convention speech. "He rooted for the housing collapse. He actually said that our wages are too high, not just once but repeatedly. Donald Trump isn't the solution to America's problems, he is the problem."



A coalition of unions that back Clinton have formed a super PAC to attack Trump with ads in battleground states, like Ohio and Wisconsin.



https://www.donaldjtrump.com/press-releases/donald-j.-trump-statement-on-afl-cio-endorsement-of-hillary-clinton



Trump responded to the AFL-CIO's endorsement with a statement that said he believes more of its members will vote for him than Clinton.



"Sadly with this endorsement of Hillary Clinton - who is totally owned by Wall Street - the leadership of the AFL-CIO has made clear that it no longer represents American workers," his statement said. "Instead they have become part of the rigged system in Washington, D.C. that benefits only the insiders."

Don't Edit

Business leaders wary of Trump, but some support him

Despite his background as an entrepreneur, Trump's stands haven't won support from leading business groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Business Roundtable.



The groups don't endorse in presidential elections, but they've made their distaste clear for Trump's policies – particularly his antipathy towards trade agreements such as the Trans Pacific Partnership – which they and most Republicans support.



"We have to understand that in a global economy 95 percent of the people we want to sell something to don't live in our country," Chamber president Thomas Donohue said in a March television interview. "They live somewhere else. And if we don't want to sell it to them, then other people are going to sell it to them and we're going to become a less significant economic force."

The chamber also predicts Trump's policies would trigger a recession, cost 7 million jobs in the United States, and cause the economy to shrink by 4.6 percent.



The Business Roundtable – headed by former GOP Michigan governor and National Association of Manufacturers CEO John Engler - has also expressed frustration with Trump's views on trade and immigration.



Engler told the New York Times that Trump's tax plans would cut federal revenue and increase the national debt by too much to be practical. He said it would be more feasible to reduce the corporate tax rate to 25 percent, instead of the 15 percent that Trump suggests, "without blowing a hole in the budget."



https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-03-07/the-2016-election-risk-that-michael-bloomberg-won-t-take?utm_campaign=buffer&utm_content=bufferd1e6e&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com



Some individual business leaders have endorsed Trump, such as billionaire Carl Icahn, who says he thinks "Trump's policies are possibly the only thing that's going to save us from going down this decline that we're in on productivity."



In a Bloomberg TV interview, Icahn applauded Trump's efforts against "arbitrary and capricious regulation such as what the EPA is now doing concerning refineries."



"I'd very much like to see Trump win this because I think he is the only hope to save business in America the way we know it," Icahn said. "The middle class worker really does not have good jobs."



Other businessmen are backing Clinton, such as Bloomberg TV founder and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Bloomberg, who pondered an independent White House run earlier this year, vocally denounced Trump in a speech at the Democratic National Convention.

“He would make it harder for small businesses to compete, do great damage to the economy, threaten the retirement savings of millions of Americans, lead to greater debt and more unemployment, erode our influence around the world, and make our communities less safe,” said Bloomberg. “The bottom line is a risky, reckless, and radical choice, and we can’t afford to make that choice.”

Trump responded to Bloomberg with this statement on Twitter: - "Little" Michael Bloomberg, who never had the guts to run for president, knows nothing about me. His last term as Mayor was a disaster!”

He dismisses opposition from “self-interested” bankers, lobbyists, Washington insiders and “encrusted” old politicians as a case of “the powerful protecting the powerful, insiders fighting for insiders.” He adds that he wears their disdain as “a badge of honor.”

“It means that I’m fighting for real change, not just partisan change,” Trump told an audience in Wilmington, Ohio. “I’m fighting - all of us across the country are fighting - to give working people control over their own futures.”