Dive Brief:
- The White House’s 2026 fiscal year budget proposal for the U.S. Department of Labor would eliminate the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs while shuffling some of OFCCP’s functions to other agencies.
- Per the document, President Donald Trump’s January executive order rescinding a 1965 order that prohibited federal contractors from discriminating against employees and job applications on the basis of protected characteristics removed the “primary basis for OFCCP’s enforcement authority and program work.”
- OFCCP’s current antidiscrimination enforcement roles with respect to military veterans and people with disabilities under the Vietnam Era Veterans’ Readjustment Assistance Act and Section 503 of the 1973 Rehabilitation Act, respectively, would be transferred to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Congress approved a budget of nearly $111 million for OFCCP during the 2025 fiscal year.
Dive Insight:
The White House had already trimmed OFCCP’s mission, including in April, when it placed about 200 employees on administrative leave. Officials at the nonprofit Equal Rights Advocates said the move would effectively shutter OFCCP’s regional offices and called it a setback for civil rights protections for federal contract employees. Congressional Democrats similarly criticized the cuts in a letter to Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer.
In addition to OFCCP, Trump has proposed eliminating DOL’s Job Corps program — whose operations DOL said it paused late last month following an internal review — as well as the Women’s Bureau and the Community Service Employment for Older Americans program. Additionally, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics would be relocated as a program under the Department of Commerce.
In all, DOL’s head count would sit at 10,879 full-time equivalent employees in 2026 under the proposal, down nearly 4,000 employees from the 2025 fiscal year.
Trump’s proposal would fulfill one of the items identified by the conservative Heritage Foundation in its “Project 2025” presidential transition document. The organization called OFCCP’s authority “redundant” and said that contractors would still be subject to antidiscrimination statutes.
“Contractors also would be less subject to the changing political whims of a President that might impose significant new costs or burdens on the contractors,” the Heritage Foundation authors added.
Trump has denied having been influenced by “Project 2025” but also has implemented several of its recommendations and appointed a group of its authors to positions within his administration. The document similarly recommended rescission of the 1965 executive order prohibiting discrimination by federal contractors and the shifting of OFCCP enforcement powers to EEOC.