DeLauro statement at hearing on Department of Labor FY 2019 budget request
Good morning, Secretary Acosta, and welcome to your second appropriations hearing before this subcommittee. It is fitting that labor is the first hearing we will hold for FY 2019—because for the past year under this Administration, working families have been under an all-out assault. We have witnessed both the elimination of worker protections and the unraveling of the social safety net.
I want to share a quote from one of my heroes and the longest serving Labor Secretary in our nation’s history: Frances Perkins. She said, and I quote: “The people are what matter to government, and a government should aim to give all the people under its jurisdiction the best possible life.” That is how I view the mission of this department. Unfortunately, I think this budget request fails miserably in fulfilling that mission. It represents the hollowing out of the Department of Labor, and a fundamental failure to govern.
Mr. Secretary, the biggest economic challenge of our time is that too many people are in jobs that do not pay them enough to live on. We need to enact policy that ensures that everyone can benefit from the economic recovery, and that everyone has the training they need to get good jobs with fair wages.
In your testimony, you tout Republican tax law—yet the tax law incentivizes outsourcing, by encouraging companies to export jobs by creating a lower rate for multinational corporations to invest abroad—this is nowhere near the corporate tax rate for domestic investments. The AFL-CIO has called this provision a “job killer.”
Furthermore, since the tax scam went into effect, the majority of corporate tax cuts have been used on stock buybacks, which benefit wealthy shareholders and company executives—not workers. The vast majority of benefits from stock buybacks go to the richest 10 percent of American households.
American companies have announced more than $178 billion in planned stock buybacks—compared to less than $6 billion in bonuses or wage increases. That means 97 percent of the tax scam’s benefits have accrued to wealthy shareholders and executives, while only 3 percent of the benefits have gone to workers.
Your testimony also discusses job growth. I will simply note that in the last year of the Obama Administration, the economy added 196,000 jobs per month. In the first year of the Trump Administration, that figure declined to 171,000 jobs per month. While I always celebrate job growth for American workers, the truth is that job growth has actually slowed down in comparison to the Obama years.
Now let’s turn to the subject of today’s hearing, the Department’s budget request. Your request would decimate the employment and training system by cutting $1.1 billion—12 percent of funding—and eliminating critical services for Americans who need help to find a job or move to a better-paying career.
By 2020, two out of three jobs will require training beyond the high school level. It is up to us to meet this need. Yet this budget would cut the Job Corps program by more than $400 million, leading to the shuttering of Job Corps centers across the country. Thousands of at-risk youth would lose access to important skills training.
Your testimony says the budget eliminates programs that are less effective. Yet, in fact, it zeroes out programs that are known to be very effective. For example, a 2017 Urban Institute report concluded that the benefits of the Senior Community Service Employment Program outweigh the small federal investment we make. And Migrant and Seasonal Farmworker job training places participants into employment 90 percent of the time and increases wages threefold. At the same time, the budget proposes to redirect funding from the evidence-based registered apprenticeship model to create a new untested scheme that is duplicative and confusing.
And while President Trump has claimed he will be tough on trade, in this budget, he proposes to eviscerate the office whose mission is to identify cheating on trade deals: he wants to cut the Bureau of International Labor Affairs – known as ILAB – by $68 million. ILAB is the lead agency for investigating labor violations in trade agreements with our trading partners. It also compiles annual reports on products that are made with child labor or forced labor.
In your budget request, you focus on modest increases to compliance assistance programs. While I agree there needs to be a balance between compliance assistance and enforcement, I am concerned that you plan to scale back enforcement activities, which would result in less oversight of bad employers that deprive their workers of honest wages or expose them to dangerous health and safety hazards.
OSHA has only enough funding to inspect every workplace under its jurisdiction every 159 years—and yet, the budget proposes to eliminate funding Susan Harwood training grants that protect and educate workers in the most dangerous jobs.
The budget also proposes to cut funding for the Women’s Bureau by $9 million. This agency continues to serve as a critical function to improving work environments and opportunities for women. It is simply unacceptable to slash its budget at a time when women make 80 cents on the dollar, on average, compared to men. That is $10,470 in lost wages, on average, every year.
On a final note, the Administration has proposed a paltry 6-week parental only paid leave scheme in their budget, despite the fact that more than 75 percent of people who take family or medical leave do so for reasons other than parental leave. President Trump’s proposal does not reflect the reality that workers face—we need a real family and medical leave policy nationwide funded responsibly and sustainably, without cuts to essential programs.
Taken as a whole, President Trump is proposing to cut the Department of Labor by $1.2 billion—a reduction of 10 percent. Mr. Secretary—we need to know today: do you agree that your Department should be cut by $1.2 billion?
And beyond this disappointing budget, I am dismayed by this Administration’s decision to rob workers of fair pay by throwing the proposed overtime rule in limbo, and by proposing a rule to hurt tipped workers—already some of the most vulnerable workers in the labor market—by allowing their employers to pocket their tips so long as they are paid the tipped minimum wage, only $7.25 an hour.
It is the obligation of this subcommittee to ensure that the working men and women of this country are not harmed by reckless cuts and disregard for their well-being. Should this budget proposal be implemented, the harm would be irreparable. Mr. Secretary, I look forward to hearing why exactly you think working people should bear the brunt of cuts while millionaires, billionaires, and corporations reap the benefits of this Administration’s agenda. Thank you, and I look forward to the discussion.