Headlines dripped with scorn when Kimberly-Clark (KMB, +2.74%) announced in January that it would lay off 5,000 to 5,500 employees. The company “celebrates the Trump tax cuts with massive layoffs, share buybacks,” said Salon, and will “use savings from tax cuts to pay for layoffs,” said Washington’s political chronicle, The Hill. Similar disdain followed January layoff announcements from Pfizer, Walmart, Microsoft, Coca-Cola, and many less prominent employers, coalescing into an angry narrative: Greedy companies are firing workers just days after getting a historically giant tax cut that will save them billions—a tax cut that was promoted by President Trump and Republicans as a job creator.
