Statement by Acting Secretary Su on President Biden’s Fiscal Year 2025 Budget

WASHINGTON — The Biden-Harris administration today released the President’s Budget for Fiscal Year 2025. Following historic progress made since the President took office — with nearly 15 million jobs created and inflation down two-thirds — the budget protects and builds on this progress by lowering costs for working families, protecting and strengthening Social Security and Medicare, investing in America and the American people, and reducing the deficit by cracking down on fraud, cutting wasteful spending, and making the wealthy and corporations pay their fair share.

“With the $13.9 billion in discretionary resources President Biden has called for, the Department of Labor can fulfill the promise to empower all workers to succeed in our growing economy,” said Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su. “We are laser-focused on building the high road in employment while combatting the low road to deliver access to high-quality jobs, fairness, safety and dignity in every community.” 

The budget makes critical, targeted investments in the American people that will promote greater prosperity for decades to come. At the Department of Labor, the budget supports worker empowerment and equity, enhances labor-management collaboration; protects workers’ wages, safety and retirement security; and provides high-quality education and training for well-paying jobs. The budget includes investments focused on: 

• Empowering and protecting workers: With an allocation of $2 billion, a $121 million increase from the 2023 level, the budget supports the enforcement of fair, safe, and healthy working conditions, particularly for high-risk and underserved groups. It aims to safeguard workers' wages and benefits; protect children from unsafe labor practices and exploitation, especially for migrant children; address the misclassification of workers as independent contractors; and improve workplace health and safety. To protect the hard-earned savings of America’s workers, it implements reforms outlined in the SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022 for employer-sponsored retirement plans.
• Expanding pathways to good jobs: The budget invests in proven training models to equip workers with the necessary skills for quality jobs. It allocates $50 million to initiate the Sectoral Employment through Career Training for Occupational Readiness program, focusing on developing and expanding sector partnerships in growing industries. Moreover, the budget calls for $335 million to broaden Registered Apprenticeship opportunities, with $50 million earmarked to expand existing Registered Apprenticeship programs in clean energy occupations. In addition, it allocates $70 million for community colleges to enhance collaborative, high-quality training programs with the public workforce development system and employers.
• Improving unemployment insurance system access and equity: The budget invests $3.5 billion, an increase of $313 million over the 2023 enacted level, with the goal of strengthening and modernizing the nation’s unemployment insurance system. This includes efforts to address fraud and a comprehensive legislative package to provide states with tools to combat improper payments, ensuring equitable access for all claimants. The budget also outlines principles for future reforms to improve benefit levels, eligibility, financing fairness, reemployment services and fraud prevention.
• Strengthening mental health parity protections: The budget proposes additional resources to enforce requirements for coverage of comprehensive mental health and substance use disorder benefits and improves all health plans. An additional $275 million over 10 years will also go toward ensuring that plans have an adequate network of behavioral health providers and assisting employers in complying with the law.
• Increasing penalties for employers who violate workers’ rights: To deter violations of workers’ rights and ensure accountability, the budget proposes increased penalties for employers who violate safety, health, wage, child labor, equal opportunity and labor organizing laws.
• Helping meet the department’s commitment to the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement partnership: With a $45 million increase, the budget would continue technical assistance through grants and agreements with non-governmental organizations to build capacity to protect workers’ rights, improve labor relations and increase public engagement.
• Building Infrastructure for responsible artificial intelligence: The budget proposes a new AI policy office within the department to oversee AI initiatives, foster innovation and help mitigate risks associated with AI utilization in the department’s programs.

The budget builds on the President’s record while achieving meaningful deficit reduction through measures that cut wasteful spending and ask the wealthy to pay their fair share.

Learn more about the President’s FY 2025 Budget.