A Las Vegas waiter feels the ill effects of Trump’s policies

LAS VEGAS — Aaron Mahan is a lifelong Republican who voted for Donald Trump twice.

He had high hopes of putting a businessman in the White House, and although it irritated the president’s monster ego, Mahan voted for his reelection. He said it was mostly due to party loyalty.

But by 2024, he had had enough.

“I saw more of the bad qualities, more of the ego,” said Mahan, who has worked as a food server on and off the Las Vegas Strip for decades. “And I felt like he ran away, at least in part, to stay out of prison.”

Mahan couldn’t bring himself to support Kamala Harris. He has never supported a Democrat becoming president. So when the illness took hold of him on election day, it was a good excuse to stay in bed and not vote.

Mahan said he is not a Trump hater. “I don’t think he’s a bad person.” Rather, the 52-year-old describes himself as a “Trump realist” who sees the good and the bad.

Here’s Mahan’s reality: a huge drop in wages. Running out of emergency savings. He experiences stress every time he enters a gas station or goes to the supermarket.

Mahan would happily throw items into the shopping cart. “Now we need to look at the prices because everything is more expensive.”

In short, he is experiencing the worst combination of inflation and economic hardship he has experienced since he started waiting tables after graduating high school.

Las Vegas thrives on its tourism industry, fueled by rivers that provide disposable income. The decline of both resulted in a painful downturn made even more painful after years of pent-up demand and the crippling COVID-19 shutdown.

Visitor numbers have dropped significantly in the last 12 months, and those who come to Las Vegas are spending less. Passenger arrivals at Harry Reid International Airport, located a short distance from the Strip, are down, and room nights, a measure of hotel occupancy, are also down.

Mahan, who works at the Virgin resort casino just off the Strip, attributes much of the slowdown to Trump’s failure to rein in inflation, tariffs, combative immigration policy and foreign policies that antagonize people and potential visitors around the world.

“His general attitude is: ‘I’m going to do what I’m going to do, and you either like it or leave it.’ And they leave it,” Mahan said. “Canadians aren’t coming. Mexicans aren’t coming. Europeans aren’t coming the way they’re coming. But at the same time, people from Southern California aren’t coming the way they’re coming.”

Mahan has one way of describing the blow to the Las Vegas economy. He calls it “Trump’s meltdown.”

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Mahan was an Air Force kid who lived all over the United States and for a time in England before his father retired from the military and started looking for a place to settle.

Mahan’s mother grew up in Sacramento and loved the mountains surrounding Las Vegas. They reminded him of the Sierra Nevada. Mahan’s father worked intermittently as a bartender. It was a skill that paid huge dividends in Nevada’s expanding hospitality industry.

So the desert metropolis it was.

Mahan was 15 years old when his family came here. After high school, he went to college for a while and started working in the coffeehouse of the Barbary Coast hotel and casino. He then moved on to the luxurious Gourmet Room. The money was good; Mahan had found his career.

From there it moved to Circus Circus and then in 2005 to the Hard Rock hotel and casino, where it has been ever since. (In 2018, Virgin Hotels acquired Hard Rock.)

Single and childless, Mahan has learned to adapt to the ups and downs of the hospitality industry. “As a food server, there will always be slows and starts,” he said over lunch at a dim sum restaurant in a Las Vegas strip mall.

Mahan saved the money over the summer and stashed away during the slow times before business started to pick up around the New Year. It weathered the Great Recession from 2007 to 2009, when Nevada led the nation in foreclosures, bankruptcies soared, and tumbleweeds boomed in many overbuilt, financially underwater Las Vegas subdivisions.

This economy feels worse.

Over the past 12 months, Las Vegas has attracted fewer visitors, and those who do are spending less.

(David Becker / For the Times)

With tourism shut down, the hotel where Mahan worked changed from a full-service cafe to a limited-hours buffet. So no more waiting tables. Instead, he makes drinks and delivers food to guests, which earns him much less in tips. He estimates his income is down $2,000 a month.

But it’s not just about significantly reduced paychecks. They don’t go nearly that far.

Gasoline. Eggs. Meat. “Everything costs more,” Mahan said.

The man, an admitted soda addict, drank Dr Pepper. “For four dollars you get three bottles,” Mahan said. “Now it’s $3 each.”

As a result, he withdrew.

To make matters worse, his air conditioner broke last month, and the $14,000 Mahan spent replacing it (along with the expensive filter he needs for allergies) depleted his emergency fund.

It seems Mahan is barely making ends meet and is not at all optimistic that things will improve any time soon.

“I’m looking forward to the day” Trump leaves office, he said.

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Mahan considers himself quite apolitical. He prefers playing with a tennis ball rather than discussing what’s going on in Washington.

He likes some of the things Trump has accomplished, like securing the Mexican border; But Mahan is no fan of the heated immigration raids that have captured landscapers and tamale vendors.

He’s pleased with the no-tip tax provision in the major legislative package passed last spring, but “I’m still taxed at the same rate and there’s no extra money coming in right now.” He’s waiting to see what happens when he files his taxes next year.

He doesn’t trust many things. “I’ve never been convinced of anything,” Mahan said. “Until I see it.”

Something else is lurking in the depths of his mind.

Mahan is a store steward with the Culinary Union, the powerful labor organization that helped make Las Vegas one of the few places in the country where a waitress like Mahan could earn enough to buy a home in an upscale suburb like nearby Henderson. (He notes that he made the purchase in 2012 and probably couldn’t afford it in today’s economy.)

Mahan worries that once Trump is done targeting immigrants, federal workers and Democrat-run cities, he will go after organized labor and undermine one of the key pillars that helped its rise to the middle class.

“He’s a businessman, and most businessmen don’t like to deal with unions,” Mahan said.

There are a few bright spots on Las Vegas’ economic picture. Convention bookings are up slightly year over year and appear to be getting stronger. Gaming revenues increased year over year. The workforce is still growing.

“The streets of this community are not filled with people who have been laid off,” said Jeremy Aguero, principal analyst at Applied Analysis, a firm that provides economic and fiscal policy consulting in Las Vegas.

“Trends of layoffs, unemployment insurance are on the rise,” Aguero said. “But they are certainly not extremely high compared to other periods of instability.”

But this offers Mahan small consolation as he prepares drinks, delivers groceries, and keeps a watchful eye on his wallet.

What would the Aaron of 2016, full of hope for a Trump presidency, say to the Aaron of today if he knew then what he knows now?

Mahan paused, chopsticks hovering over the custard dumpling.

“Prepare for a bumpy ride,” he said.