Chavez-DeRemer had served as a congresswoman from Oregon previously, and, while she is a Republican, she was supported in her congressional campaigns by some unions, including the Oregon Fire Fighters Council, Ironworkers Local 29, the United Food and Commercial Workers, and the American Federation of Government Employees. When she was tapped by Trump to take over as labor secretary, the move was lauded by International Brotherhood of Teamsters President Sean O’Brien, who had recently spoken at the Republican National Convention.

The Department of Labor has a budget of roughly $14 billion a year and over 15,000 employees, and enforces and interprets federal laws that oversee more than 165 million workers in the U.S. While Chavez-DeRemer was a Republican, a member of Trump’s administration, and by no means a champion of the working class, her appointment was seen by many across the labor movement as not as bad an appointment as might have been expected.

DeRemer served from March 10, 2025 until her resignation, amid a host of scandals including an alleged inappropriate relationship with an employee, drinking on the job, as well as improper use of taxpayer money. None of these allegations have been proven; however, DeRemer chose to step down from her role, saying that she preferred to spend “more time with family.”

To replace DeRemer Trump announced that he was tapping Keith Sonderling as Acting Secretary of Labor. Sonderling is viewed as a Washington insider with significant connections to big business interests and in Republican circles of influence that include connections to business and politicians in his home state of Florida, where attacks on unions and the working class have been ramping up under Trump.

Many business leaders and right-wingers were surprised when Chavez- DeRemer was appointed in 2025, expecting a more vicious right-wing, pro-business, anti-worker secretary. This led to those business and right-wing leaders lobbying Trump to appoint Sonderling as the number two person in the Department of Labor under DeRemer. Sonderling was believed to have played a significant role in Elon Musk’s DOGE early in Trumps second presidency.

While it is yet to be seen what will come of Sonderling’s appointment, it signals a move towards an even less worker-friendly Department of Labor and a shift further to the right in the secretary’s office.

#Labor #Trump #LoriChavezDeRemer #KeithSonderling #DepartmentofLabor

The numbers of continuing claims, which show how many people are actually collecting benefits, also rose. The number of people getting regular state unemployment insurance rose to 13.2 million for the week ending August 29, up 50,000 from the previous week. The federal PUA benefits are being paid to 14.6 million for the week ending August 22, up over a million from the week before, and marking the first time that PUA claims exceeded the regular state UI.

With more and more workers out of work for longer periods of time, the Federal Emergency Unemployment Compensation or FEUC, for those who regular UI has run out, also rose by 30,000 to more than 1.4 million. Another program for these long-term workers, the Extended Benefits, saw their numbers jump 43% to more than 240,000.

The broadest measure, which includes the regular state unemployment insurance, the federal PUA, the federal PEUC, the state EB, as well as smaller programs, grew by 375,000 to 29.6 million. This represents more than 18% of the total labor force, which are those who are working or unemployed.

While the economy was slammed by the pandemic in March and April at the beginning of the recession, the worsening numbers for unemployment insurance are coming at a time when new infections and deaths for COVID-19 have been trending down recently. Along with the continued rise in numbers of long-term unemployed, the recession is beginning to worsen even without a surge in the pandemic.

The financial situation of local and state governments continues to get worse as sales and income tax revenues fall with recession. State and local governments face a total shortfall of about $500 billion through next summer. Without more aid from the federal government, education and health care services will be slashed, costing hundreds of thousands in lost jobs.

Despite the growing numbers of people who are depending on government aid and a fiscal crunch among state and local governments, the likelihood of the federal government coming up with more economic relief also dimmed in Washington, D.C.

While the Democrats in the House of Representative passed a $3.5 trillion Heroes Act back in May, the Republicans did not respond until late July. By this time parts of the March Cares Act, including the $600 a week additional unemployment benefits and the eviction and foreclosure restrictions, were expiring. When the Republican Senate put forward a much more limited $1 trillion proposal, the Democrats offered to split the difference with a $2.2 trillion compromise. But in response, the Republican Senate has passed a bill that only offers $300 billion in new money – showing that they are not serious about negotiating. The Republican Senate bill is even worse than President Trump’s Executive Order giving $300 a week in additional aid, only offering $200 a week. In this and in other ways, the Republican Senate has shown themselves with their bill to be worse than Trump on economic aid to the American people.

#SanJoséCA #unemploymentInsurance #DepartmentOfLabor #HEROESAct

San José, CA – On Thursday, June 4 the federal Department of Labor reported that 1.9 million new claims for state unemployment insurance or UI benefits were filed in the week ending May 30. This was down by 250,000 claims from the previous week, continuing the slow decline in new applications. However, this was still more than two and a half times higher than the previous pre-pandemic record of almost 700,000 claims made during the deep 1981-82 recession.

The total number of people receiving state unemployment benefits – which is delayed by a week – rose by 650,000 to 21.5 million for the week ending May 23. The total number of the federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance or PUA and Pandemic Employment Assistance or PEA rose by 3 million to a total of almost 11 million in the week ending May 16. Putting together the state UI totals along with the federal PUA and PEA means that almost 30 million individuals, or 20% of the total labor force, were collecting aid for lost jobs or income as of the middle of May.

Years of underfunding and neglect at best, and sabotage at worst, has hamstrung the ability of state and federal government to get aid to those who need it. Thousands who lost their livelihoods have not been able to file for state unemployment benefits, and at least four states – Arkansas, Kansas, New Hampshire and West Virginia – all with Republican governors – have not even started to pay federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance.

Things are so bad that there is a growing number of errors in the reports. For example, there are at least a half a million PUA and PEA claims being paid through states that are not showing up in the federal reports, meaning that the actual total benefits being paid in mid-May was more than 30 million.

Worst of all, thousands of people are being thrown off of unemployment for refusing or even hesitating to return to work in unsafe jobs. States such as Oklahoma and Ohio are encouraging employers to report workers unwilling or unable to return to work and cut them off of unemployment benefits. This is one of the reasons that almost all states are rushing to ‘reopen’ despite a majority of Americans thinking that the pace is too fast. Businesses and their bought and paid for politicians want to use the threat of hunger and homelessness to force people back to work to try to restore profits, the pandemic be damned.

#SanJoséCA #PoorPeoplesMovements #unemploymentInsurance #DepartmentOfLabor #PandemicUnemploymentAssistance

San José, CA – On Oct. 3, the Department of Labor released their report on the job market for September. The report showed that the Labor Force Participation Rate (LFPR), or the percentage of adults either working or looking for work, continued to decline, and hit a low not seen since 1978. Almost 100,000 jobless workers gave up their job search and left the labor market, helping the unemployment rate to go down to 5.9%, the lowest since summer of 2008.

Hardest hit by the drop in labor force participation were young people, 16 to 24 years old, who have seen their LFPR drop by 4.3 percentage points since the recession began in December 2007, much more than the 3.3 percentage point overall fall. Youth also suffer from the highest unemployment rate, at 13.7%, and their unemployment rate has risen the most, 2 whole percentage points, since the recession began.

Another sign of a weak labor market was the small increase in weekly wages, which were up only 2% from a year ago, barely enough to cover rising prices. This low rate of increase in weekly wages shows that workers are still at a disadvantage and are not able to get higher wages, even though the overall economy has been growing for more than five years.

While the labor market was half empty, looking at the weak labor force participation rates and weekly earning, it was also seen as half full, at least by the mainstream media, given the drop in the unemployment rate and the 248,000 new jobs added. The stock market reacted positively with large gains after days of losses. The report was seen as good for corporate profits: the increase in new jobs showed that the economy was still growing, that there was no recession on the horizon, and sales would continue to rise. At the same time, the weak growth in wages means that labor costs won’t be pressuring profit margins and corporate profits.

#SanJoséCA #CapitalismAndEconomy #DepartmentOfLabor #LaborForceParticipationRate

June marked the third month in row that less than 100,000 net new jobs were created, after much stronger job growth at the beginning of the year. There are still almost 4 million fewer jobs in the U.S. than when the last economic expansion ended in December of 2007. At June’s rate of job growth, it would take four more years for the economy to just regain the jobs lost during the recession.

Unemployment for African Americans continued to be twice that of whites, at 14.4% vs. 7.4% for whites. This gap widened in June, as the unemployment rate for Blacks rose 0.8% from May, while the rate stayed the same for whites.

Another sign of weakness in the job market was that a third of the net new jobs came from temporary work. Over the last three months businesses have hired about a million more part-time workers. At the same time they have cut 700,000 full time workers. In addition, there are more and more self-employed people, largely made up of those who do contract work. This trend of replacing full-time workers with more and more part-time and temporary workers makes the lives of working people even more unstable and stressful.

On top of a weak labor market, federal Extended Unemployment Insurance benefits are set to expire at the end of the year unless Congress renews them. The congressional Republicans have already forced the length of federal extended benefits to be cut from a maximum of 73 weeks (in states with high unemployment) to only 53 weeks (this falls to 47 weeks in September). This was done by eliminating the federal Extended Benefits (EB) program and cutting back on the Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) program.

If nothing is done by Jan. 2, 2013, there will be no federal Extended Unemployment Insurance at all and jobless workers will only be able to get the state unemployment insurance, which lasts for 26 weeks (6 months). With more than 40% of all unemployed, which comes to more than 5 million people, out of work for more than six months, only six months of state unemployment insurance is grossly inadequate.

#UnitedStates #Unemployment #DepartmentOfLabor #ExtendedUnemploymentInsuranceBenefits

San José, CA – In the first week of June, two important reports showed a sharp slowdown in the U.S. economy. On Friday, June 3, the Department of Labor said that unemployment in May rose to 9.1%, while only 54,000 new jobs were created, far less than what mainstream economists were predicting. Two days earlier, on June 1, a report on home prices showed another drop of 4.2% in the first three months of 2011, bringing home prices to a new low since the housing market began to tank in 2006.

Not only did the unemployment rate rise for the second month in a row, but the average length of unemployment rose to 39.7 weeks (almost 10 months), the longest time on records going back to 1948. Unemployment continued to hit oppressed nationalities the hardest, with the African American unemployment rate at 16.2%, more than twice the rate of whites.

One of the reasons for the small number of new jobs created in May was that local governments cut 28,000 jobs, mostly from cuts in education. Over the last year, local governments have cut 268,000 jobs as the poor economy and cuts in state and federal government support have forced cutbacks in schools and other local government services. These cuts often hurt poor and working-class families who have to depend on public schools and local government services, especially with the continuing high unemployment rates.

The fall in home prices was reported by the Standard and Poor’s/Case-Schiller index, which looks as changes in prices of same homes (as opposed to most reports that just give the average price of whatever homes are sold, which can be pulled up or down by the numbers of low or high priced homes being sold). The fall in home prices has brought the average home in 20 U.S. metropolitan areas back down to 2002 levels, wiping out all of the gains of the housing boom from 2003 to 2006. Falling home prices are pushing more and more homeowners ‘underwater’, where their mortgages are worth more than their homes. Almost a quarter (23%) of homeowners with mortgages are in this situation, which makes it harder for them to sell their home and foreclosure more likely.

Falling home prices are not only hurting homeowners, but are also a drag on the overall economy. In previous recessions, construction of new homes has been a big part of an economic recovery by creating new jobs in construction, real estate and finance. But with large numbers of foreclosed homes putting downward pressure on home prices while continuing high unemployment is a damper on home buyers, housing construction remains very slow despite very low interest rates on mortgages. The latest report of about 550,000 starts of home construction (at an annual rate) is one-third to one-half the rates following the last three recessions.

With high unemployment limiting household spending, the construction industry in the dumps, businesses sitting on a trillion dollars of cash that they are unwilling to spend, and local and state government cutting jobs, wages and pensions, only the federal government has been able to spend to sustain the economy. But the Republican-led charge to cut federal government spending promises even more job losses, increasing the chances of the economy falling back into a recession.

#SanJoséCA #EconomicCrisis #Unemployment #DepartmentOfLabor