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us department of labor
Trump Labor Statistics Pick Called Social Security a 'Ponzi Scheme' That Should Be Shuttered
"Bureau of Labor Statistics data is what determines the annual cost-of-living adjustment for Social Security benefits," said Rep. John Larson. "It should alarm everyone when a yes-man determined to end Social Security is installed in this position."
Aug 13, 2025
U.S. President Donald Trump's pick to replace the top labor statistics official he fired earlier this month has called Social Security a "Ponzi scheme" that needs to be "sunset," comments that critics said further disqualify the nominee for the key government role.
During a December 2024 radio interview, Heritage Foundation economist E.J. Antoni said it is a "mathematical fiction" that Social Security "can go on forever" and called for "some kind of transition program where unfortunately you'll need a generation of people who pay Social Security taxes, but never actually receive any of those benefits."
"That's the price to pay for unwinding a Ponzi scheme that was foisted on the American people by the Democrats in the 1930s," Antoni continued. "You're not going to be able to sustain a Ponzi scheme like Social Security. Eventually, you need to sunset the program."
Trump's choice for the Commissioner of the Bureau Labor Statistics called Social Security a "Ponzi scheme" in an interview:
" What you need to do is have some kind of transition program where unfortunately you'll need a generation of people who pay Social Security taxes, but… pic.twitter.com/MXL7k1C644
— More Perfect Union (@MorePerfectUS) August 12, 2025
Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.), one of Social Security's most vocal defenders in Congress, said Antoni's position on the program matters because "Bureau of Labor Statistics data is what determines the annual cost-of-living adjustment for Social Security benefits."
"It should alarm everyone when a yes-man determined to end Social Security is installed in this position," Larson said in a statement. "I call on every Senate Republican to stand with Democrats and reject this extreme nominee—before our seniors are denied the benefits they earned through a lifetime of hard work."
Trump announced Antoni's nomination to serve as the next commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) less than two weeks after the president fired the agency's former head, Erika McEntarfer, following the release of abysmal jobs figures. The firing sparked concerns that future BLS data will be manipulated to suit Trump's political interests.
Antoni was a contributor to the far-right Project 2025 agenda that the Trump administration appears to have drawn from repeatedly this year, and his position on Social Security echoes that of far-right billionaire Elon Musk, who has also falsely characterized the program as a Ponzi scheme.
During his time in the Trump administration, Musk spearheaded an assault on the Social Security Administration that continues in the present, causing widespread chaos at the agency and increasing wait times for beneficiaries.
"President Trump fired the commissioner of Labor Statistics to cover up a weak jobs report—and now he is replacing her with a Project 2025 lackey who wants to shut down Social Security," said Larson. "E.J. Antoni agrees with Elon Musk that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme and said that middle-class seniors would be better off if it was eliminated."
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Trump Labor Department Launches 'Barrage of Attacks' on Workers
"They're showing their true colors as an anti-worker administration," Andrew Stettner of the Century Foundation told Common Dreams.
Jul 22, 2025
In what has been described as a "barrage of attacks on workers," the U.S. Department of Labor under President Donald Trump is planning to overhaul dozens of rules that protect workers from exploitation and wage theft.
The administration announced this month that it planned to change over 60 regulations it deems "unecessary" burdens to businesses and economic growth.
According to an analysis released Tuesday by labor policy experts at the Century Foundation—senior fellows Julie Su and Rachel West and director of economy and jobs Andrew Stettner—most of the changes "reverse critical standards that ensure workers get a just day's pay and come home healthy and safe."
In one of the most sweeping changes, the department plans to reverse a 2013 rule that extended minimum wage and overtime protections to home healthcare workers.
These workers, who care for elderly and other medically frail individuals, already make less than $17 an hour on average.
Stettner told Common Dreams that the changes will "suppress wages" and allow agencies to "put the screws on workers to work 50- or 60-hour weeks."
The Trump administration is also rolling back a Biden-era rule that banned bosses from paying subminimum wages to disabled employees.
This discriminatory practice has been on the wane due to state-level bans in 15 states. But in the absence of a federal ban, nearly 40,000 employees—most of whom have intellectual disabilities—still received less than the federal minimum wage as of 2024.
The Century Foundation report says that by ending the rule, the Trump administration would be once again "relegating workers with disabilities to jobs that pay as little as pennies per hour."
The department is also taking a hatchet to workers' rights and safety. Another major change it proposed would do away with protections for seasonal migrant farmworkers under the H-2A visa program who raise complaints about wage and hour violations.
It was commonplace for farm owners to take advantage of these seasonal employees, whose legal status was tied to their work, and who therefore risked deportation if they lost their jobs.
Cases of exploitation, however, declined to an all-time low after the Biden administration introduced the rule, which banned employers from firing, disciplining, or otherwise retaliating against workers who attempted to participate in collective bargaining.
"These reforms protected the rights of farmworkers in the H-2A program to speak out individually and collectively against mistreatment and prevented employers from arbitrarily firing them from their jobs," the report says.
The department also proposed weakening the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's (OSHA) general duty clause, which allows businesses to be punished for putting their employees in dangerous situations. The proposed change would exempt many jobs that are deemed "inherently risky" from protection.
The administration described it as a way to prevent OSHA from cracking down on workplace injuries among athletes and stuntmen.
However, Stettner suggested that the broad language could allow the administration to go much further in defining what is considered "inherently risky." The report notes that the administration is "crowdsourcing" suggestions from employers about what other occupations to exempt.
"The employer community, they're jumping onto this," Stettner said. "They're telling their members to write in to the Department of Labor about other inherently dangerous occupations they should except from the general duty clause."
The authors pointed out that the administration has previously rolled back restrictions meant to protect workers from heat-related stress on the job, which results in more than 600 deaths and over 25,000 injuries each year.
As the administration pushes to expand coal mining, it is also weakening protections for the miners themselves. After laying off most of the employees at OSHA's research arm—which monitors cases of black lung disease—earlier this year, it is now weakening safety requirements to prevent roof falls, mine explosions, and exposure to toxic silica.
"The DOL's role should be to protect the most vulnerable workers: farmworkers, people with disabilities, people that have suffered discrimination," Stettner said. "They're showing their true colors as an anti-worker administration."
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'Extra Cruel': Trump Admin Ends Job Program for Seniors as Work Requirements Loom
"Many of our participants are living on the edge of poverty," said the head of one organization impacted by the termination of the Senior Community Service Employment Program.
Jul 20, 2025
The Trump administration has reportedly terminated the Department of Labor's only job training program for low-income seniors, a decision that came as older Americans braced for new work reporting requirements under the Republican budget law enacted earlier this month.
Bloomberg Law reported Friday that the Labor Department "quietly ended" its Senior Community Service Employment Program (SCSEP), which helped low-income Americans aged 55 or older find part-time employment or job training at nonprofits and government agencies. The program, described as a bridge to full-time employment, served tens of thousands of people across the country.
Groups that received funding under SCSEP, such as the National Council on Aging and Goodwill Industries, "say the program stopped giving them money after June 30," according to Bloomberg Law, which reported that the Labor Department "hasn't made available the roughly $300 million set aside for national grant recipients."
The Trump White House has proposed zeroing out funding for SCSEP in its budget request for fiscal year 2026, smearing the program as an "earmark to leftist, DEI-promoting entities."
In a July 17 letter to Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer and Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought, a group of Democratic lawmakers led by Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif.) warned that the withholding of SCSEP funds has already had "devastating impacts," pointing to program grantees in several states that have been forced to furlough thousands of low-income seniors.
Clayton Fong, president and CEO of the National Asian Pacific Center on Aging, said earlier this month that the funding delay "is not just a bureaucratic issue—it's a crisis for tens of thousands of older adults who depend on SCSEP to survive."
"Many of our participants are living on the edge of poverty," said Fong. "SCSEP gives them purpose, dignity, and the ability to put food on the table. The longer this delay continues, the deeper the harm is."
Bloomberg Law noted that the impact of the ending of SCSEP "could be particularly dire for the thousands of participants who will have to find work or volunteer hours to keep their public health insurance coverage."
"The cruelty is the point," former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich wrote on social media in response to Bloomberg Law's reporting.
Just piling up the bad news today...Our nationwide job training program for low-income seniors has had bipartisan support for decades.It's extra cruel to end it right on the heels of new work requirements to access Medicaid and food assistance.
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— Alt U.S. Department of Labor (@alt-dol.altgov.info) Jul 18, 2025 at 10:15 AM
Millions of older Americans receive health coverage through Medicaid. The AARP Public Policy Institute has estimated that 9 million Medicaid recipients between the ages of 50 and 64 will be subject to the Trump-GOP budget law's work requirements, which mandate that certain enrollees engage in work, job training, or other qualifying activities for at least 80 hours per month—or lose coverage.
The mandates are set to take effect late next year, after the 2026 midterm elections.
The Republican law also expands work requirements for recipients of federal nutrition assistance, raising the age limit for the mandates from 55 to 64. Millions of older adults are enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program nationwide.
"We believe every American deserves to age with dignity—and that requires affordable access to the basics of life such as food and healthcare," Ramsey Alwin, president and CEO of the National Council on Aging, said earlier this month after Republicans pushed the budget measure through Congress. "This act would put that further out of reach for millions of older Americans in need."
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