Trump proposes $2.5B in Labor cuts

President Trump plans to slash labor funding by 21 percent.

The Labor Department would receive $9.6 billion under the president’s proposed budget released Thursday, which is a $2.5 billion decrease from the current level of funding.

The White House budget proposed to crack down on “improper” unemployment insurance payments, claiming it will save as much as $536 per person. But it also puts various workplace training programs at risk.

“With the need to rebuild the nation’s military without increasing the deficit, this budget focuses the Department of Labor on its highest priority functions and disinvests in activities that are duplicative, unnecessary, unproven, or ineffective,” the White House budget proposal says.

{mosads}Sen. Patty Murray (Wash.), the upper chamber’s top Democrat on labor issues, said this is “yet another clear example of President Trump breaking his campaign promise to stand with workers.”

AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka, who met with Trump recently, said, “President Trump’s proposed budget attempts to balance the budget on the backs of working families.”

“Working people in states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin didn’t vote for a budget that slashes workforce training,” he said.

Trump’s proposal requires the Labor Department to decrease federal funding for job training programs, turning over the responsibility to the states for keeping these programs alive.

That includes closing job training centers for “disadvantaged youth” that do a “poor job educating and preparing students.”

The Trump administration would also put a job training program for senior citizens on the chopping block, which it claims will save $434 million.

The White House says it can save another $11 million by axing job training grants offered by the Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration and “focusing the agency on its central work of keeping workers safe on the job.” 

The budget would, however, carve out room for more apprenticeship programs, which the White House says are an “evidence-based approach to preparing workers for jobs.”

Democrats quickly blasted Trump’s budget outline, which is meant to serve as a blueprint for Congress. Many of the steep cuts are likely to be met with resistance from both sides of the aisle. 

Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.) called the labor numbers a “reckless proposal” that will make it “even harder for working families to get ahead and for older Americans to make ends meet.”