Enduring almost three hours full of evasive answers, Democrats on the House Education and the Workforce Committee jumped on GOP President Donald Trump’s Labor Secretary, Lori Chavez-DeRemer, about the President’s planned huge cuts in both money and people enforcing laws against wage theft. Chavez-DeRemer vowed to enforce Anti-Wage Theft Laws, even with a budget cut and fewer people. Democrats were skeptical, at best. The Lawmakers forced Chavez-DeRemer to admit that under a skeleton version of Trump’s proposed budget for the fiscal year starting October 1st, the number of Workers in the Department’s Wage and Hour Division would decline from 1,313 when Trump took office to 906 in the new fiscal year. That Division enforces laws banning wage theft and recovers lost pay after it occurs, plus damages. There are 1,160 Wage and Hour Staffers now, after 153 either took six-month buyouts which the Trump Administration offered or were fired due to purges by Trump’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), then headed by multibillionaire and Trump puppeteer Elon Musk. Wage and Hour Division funds would take a 19% hit, down $25 million, too.

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