News List

May17,2017 The Honorable Alexander Acosta Secretary U.S. Department of Labor 200 Constitution Ave. NW Washington, DC 20210 Dear Secretary Acosta: The Committee on Education and the Workforce (Committee) congratulates you on your confirmation as Secretary of the Department of Labor (Department). The Department is under the Committee's jurisdiction, so we are eager to establish an effective and coll... Read more »

Protecting our country’s most vulnerable children has long been a national priority. That’s why Congress passed the Missing Children’s Assistance Act in 1984, establishing a grant to support efforts to find missing children and prevent child exploitation. For more than 30 years, the grant has helped the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) coordinate and support state and loc... Read more »

Freedom. Flexibility. Fairness. That’s what the Working Families and Flexibility Act (H.R. 1180) is all about. Introduced by Rep. Martha Roby (R-AL), the bill would give workers eligible for overtime pay the freedom to choose between paid time off and cash wages. As a result, workers would have more flexibility to spend time with their family or take care of personal responsibilities. The bill wou... Read more »

BACKGROUND: The American workforce has transformed dramatically over the years and the needs of workers in the 21st century have changed as well. Read more »

To help Americans balance the needs of family and work, Rep. Martha Roby (R-AL) introduced the Working Families Flexibility Act of 2017 (H.R. 1180). This commonsense legislation would allow private-sector workers to choose paid time off or ‘comp time’ instead of cash wages as compensation for working overtime hours. Read more »

Myth: H.R. 1180 will result in employees working longer hours for less pay. Fact: The Working Families Flexibility Act safeguards workers’ time and wages. Read more »

BACKGROUND Helping children reject a life of crime has long been a national priority. It requires more than an adjudication system and a detention facility. It requires a collaborative effort among parents, teachers, and community members to prevent criminal behavior and support children who have engaged in illegal activity. To promote safe communities and help state and local leaders serve at-ris... Read more »

On March 9, 2017, the U.S. Department of Education (Department) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) issued a joint press release announcing the temporary suspension of the IRS Data Retrieval Tool (DRT) due to privacy concerns. Read more »

Faced with rising costs and limited choices, workers are struggling to find the health care coverage they and their families need. And those employed by our nation’s small businesses face particularly tough challenges. Since 2008, the share of small businesses with less than 10 employees offering health care coverage has dropped by a staggering 36 percent. Additionally, the cost of health insuranc... Read more »

Under Obamacare, small businesses have been hit hard by flawed mandates and soaring costs. An American Action Forum study reported: Since [Obamacare] became law, among small businesses, the rise in premiums has been associated with $19 billion in lost wages, 10,130 fewer business establishments, and nearly 300,000 lost jobs ... On top of higher costs, small businesses face limited health care pla... Read more »