President Donald Trump released his initial budget outline Thursday, calling for a 21 percent budget cut to the Department of Labor.
“President Trump’s proposed budget ensures the Department of Labor focuses its resources on protecting workers and advancing opportunity,” Jillian Rogers, a spokeswoman for the Department of Labor said Thursday.
The president’s 2018 budget requests $9.6 billion for the Department of Labor, which is a $2.5 billion or 21 percent decrease from the 2017 annualized CR level (continuing resolution).
The budget outline expands re-employment and eligibility assessments, which the Department characterized as a valuable activity that saves an average of $536 per claimant in unemployment insurance benefit costs by reducing improper payments and encouraging claimants to return to work.
Trump’s budget calls for an elimination of the $434 million Senior Community Service Employment Program (SCSEP), which the White House characterized as “ineffective.”
“SCSEP is ineffective in meeting its purpose of transitioning low-income unemployed seniors into subsidized jobs,” the Trump administration asserted. Authorized by the Older Americans Act, the program was designed to provide training and employment assistance to those over the age of 55, unemployed and near the poverty level.
The president received some flack for the proposed elimination of the SCSEP, but the White House asserts that as many as one third of participants fail to complete the program, and only half of the those who complete the program successfully transitions into subsidized employment.
President Obama cut the SCSEP program from $434 million to $380 million in 2015, and proposed to move the program outside of the Department of Labor. In 2011, Obama had reached a deal with Congress to cut SCSEP funding by 45 percent, an agreement that also called for the elimination of 59,000 training and employment positions for older workers.
“Subsidized on-the-job training programs are useful in allowing individuals to keep a foothold in the labor market, Aparna Mathur, a labor policy expert at the American Enterprise Institute, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
“While I would have preferred modifications to the SCSEP so that individuals are not restricted to training opportunities only within certain types of work and establishments, completely doing away with the program is likely to cause hardship to seniors who often have traditional labor market opportunities closed to them, ” Mathur said.
Trump’s proposal also takes aim at the Job Corps program for disadvantage youth, calling for the closure of centers that do not meet its mission of educating and preparing students. The White House asserts that the program can be improved by eliminating inefficiencies.
Decreases in federal support for job training and employment services formula grants is also a part of the proposal, with the president shifting responsibility for funding these services and programs back to the states, local municipalities and private employers.
The proposed budget would also refocus the Bureau of International Labor Affairs, a department that led efforts to ensure that workers around the world are treated fairly. The Trump administration said the Bureau will now work to ensure that, “U.S. trade agreements are fair to American workers.”
The Bureau of International Affair’s grant program would also be eliminating, saving at least $60 million, according to the White House.
The budget outline just covers “discretionary” spending for the 2018 fiscal year, starting Oct. 1. The administration also plans to ask for $30 billion for the Department of Defense and $3 billion for the Department of Homeland Security for the 2017 fiscal year, according to Reuters.
Defense spending is drastically increased in the president’s proposal, while the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of State see massive cuts in the 2018 proposal.
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