Welcomes Secretary Perez in His First Appropriations Committee Appearance
WASHINGTON, DC—Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), senior Democrat on the subcommittee responsible for funding the Department of Labor (DOL), today talked about the necessity of supporting DOL in order to support a strong economy. The budget proposed by Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan yesterday would cut labor priorities like job training, while the Administration’s budget for DOL proposes critical investments in developing our workforce and supporting working families.
The Budget Committee is debating and holding votes on Chairman Ryan’s budget proposal today. DeLauro will hold a press call with Sister Simone Campbell and Melissa Boteach, Vice President, Poverty to Prosperity Program at the Center for American Progress, tomorrow, April 3 at 2:00 p.m. to discuss the harmful effect this budget would have on America.
Funding for DOL, and other programs funded by the Labor-Education-Health and Human Services funding bill has not kept pace with inflation and population growth for years, limiting our ability to invest in job training and worker safety, among other important areas.
DeLauro’s opening statement as delivered is below:
“Thank you, Secretary Perez, for joining us this morning. I want to welcome you to this subcommittee for your first appropriations hearing, and I thank you for your leadership on behalf of working families, including pushing for higher wages and support for the unemployed, since becoming the Secretary of Labor.
“We are here today to talk about the budget for the Department of Labor, an agency whose mission is to create jobs, create a strong middle class and support a strong economy for everyone – by increasing opportunities for economic mobility; by providing temporary assistance to the disadvantaged; and by protecting the health and the safety of our workforce. To quote your testimony Mr. Secretary, it’s about “making good on the promise of opportunity…” As we look toward the coming fiscal year, I think it is important to keep in mind the bigger picture, and the severe budget constraints the Department of Labor has been facing in recent years.
“For even as we have been trying to get people across the country back to work after an historic recession, the overall discretionary budget for this Department has been slashed by one-sixth, adjusted for inflation, since 2010. These cuts have damaged our priorities across the board. The future of the economy lies in jobs that require knowledge and skills, and those jobs also offer the best chance for decent, livable wages and benefits. But despite a clear need for a highly skilled workforce, and with this House Majority intent on slashing needed investments rather than creating jobs, Congress has cut funding for job training and reemployment programs by nearly 20 percent since fiscal year 2010. Training programs for dislocated workers have also been cut by a full 20 percent, despite the fact that employers continue to claim they cannot find qualified workers to fill job openings. Job training programs for at-risk youth have been cut by hundreds of millions of dollars per year, even though teen unemployment remains above 20 percent. I might add my strong support for the Job Corps program and despite its budgetary challenges we’re looking at it being about 20 percent below where, in my view, we need to be.”
“On the worker protection side, Occupational Safety and Health Administration funding has declined by nearly ten percent since fiscal year 2010. And the Wage and Hour Division has seen its budget decline by eight percent. This means it is now limited to investigating less than one-half of one percent of workplaces in industries with a history of wage violations. Once again, we are doing less with less. All of these cuts have real-life repercussions that negatively impact both workers and the economy. More unemployed workers are denied access to job training. More low-wage workers are exploited in the workplace. And more jobs – the critical jobs that Americans need and that we should be working hard to restore – are lost.
“According to an estimate by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, full implementation of sequestration in 2014 would have resulted in as many as 1.2 million fewer jobs by the end of that year. That is 100,000 jobs lost each month because of sequestration cuts – at a time when millions of Americans continue to look for work. Fortunately last year’s budget agreement reversed some – and only some – of those sequestration cuts. But we still have a long way to go to reverse the damage that has been done.
“This Majority is moving in the wrong direction. The House Budget Committee is meeting today to mark up the latest iteration of Chairman Ryan’s budget, and he is pushing for even deeper cuts to priorities like job training programs, health, and education. That is the big picture, which is very troubling to me. Labor-HHS programs make up roughly a third of total non-defense discretionary spending, but in the current fiscal year they are receiving only one-eighth of the increased funding provided under Ryan-Murray. This has consequences. As long as this subcommittee’s allocation continues to be less than its proportional share should be, as was the case in 2014, we will continue to lack the funding we need to make critical investments in the Department of Labor. Now let me turn to the department’s budget request for fiscal year 2015.
“We clearly need to help more of our workers earn the skills and credentials necessary for the high-skill jobs of our modern economy. So, I am glad to see some modest but important increases this year. I am also happy to see the request for $1.5 billion to continue the partnerships between community colleges, private employers, and training providers. But these funds are requested in a supplemental initiative – outside this year’s discretionary funding caps – so I want to know how hard the administration plans to fight for them.
“With regards to worker protection agencies, I support the requested increases for priorities such as wage and hour investigations and whistleblower protections in this request. Adding 300 investigators and updating important rules and regulations will help to ensure our workers receive the wages, benefits, and legal protections that they deserve.
“So I think the Labor Department is doing many good things and it is moving in the right direction, albeit more slowly than I would prefer. But I do have some concerns. One example, the administration continues to propose funding cuts to the Women’s Bureau and the Women in Apprenticeship program. Both of these programs serve to improve career opportunities for women, and I plan to fight for their continuation. Women now make up half the nation’s workforce, but they face a host of unique and disproportionate challenges in the workplace, from unequal pay to continuing barriers to non-traditional employment. So I am interested to know what the Department is doing, in light of these funding cuts, to improve economic opportunities for women.
“There is much to discuss today. So thank you for joining us, Secretary Perez. I look forward to your testimony and to working with you to advance the President’s economic agenda, support our nation’s workers and their families, and build a strong economy for everyone. Thank you.”
