House Dems want DOL’s benefits agency to answer for ‘drastic’ enforcement cuts
Top Democrats on the House Education & Workforce Committee are seeking answers from a Department of Labor component on how significant staff cuts and underfunding have impacted its ability to enforce a critical federal benefits law.
The concerns from Reps. Bobby Scott of Virginia and Mark DeSaulnier of California center on the Employee Benefits Security Administration, which has lost more than 20% of its staff since the beginning of the second Trump administration. Cuts to the EBSA’s enforcement staff have been especially “drastic,” the lawmakers wrote to the agency in a letter shared first with FedScoop.
Enforcement staffers with the EBSA are tasked with overseeing requirements of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) and ensuring the security of more than 155 million workers’ employment-based benefits. Funding for EBSA has essentially stayed flat over the past decade, amid surging operational costs and staff reductions.
Scott, ranking member of the House Education & Workforce Committee, and DeSaulnier, the top Democrat on the Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions Subcommittee, asked in the letter how the agency can possibly keep up with its enforcement of the law that sets minimum standards for private retirement and health plans at a time when the EBSA has “roughly 1 investigator for every 21,400 plans.”
“The chaotic nature of the Trump Administration’s campaign to slash the federal workforce has also obscured the exact scope and severity of the damage imposed on the Agency’s workforce,” the lawmakers wrote in their letter to DOL Assistant Secretary Daniel Aronowitz, who leads the EBSA. “Over the last 20 months, we have had to rely on media reports and top-line figures in annual budget requests to ascertain EBSA’s capacity, which are often vague or outdated.”
The Trump administration has made a show of its supposed commitment to fighting fraud in federal programs — though splashy cost-savings claims by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency were largely found to be baseless.
Scott and DeSaulnier argued that a skeleton staff at the EBSA leaves worker benefits more vulnerable to risk, especially given a recent proposal to create a safe legal harbor for 401(k) plans that include “alternative assets” like cryptocurrency and private equity.
“The hazard posed to workers’ retirement security by this proposed rule is compounded by the agency’s new approach to de-prioritize enforcement against plan fiduciaries for imprudent decisions,” the lawmakers wrote.
The House Democrats concluded their letter by asking Aronowitz to answer a series of questions about the EBSA’s staffing capabilities and its enforcement efforts, including the number of investigations the agency has opened and closed this year.
“In order for the Committee to evaluate EBSA’s ability to effectively carry out its mission, as well as to advocate for more resources, it is imperative we have a robust and up-to-date picture of the Agency’s workforce changes and composition,” said the lawmakers, who set an Oct. 22 deadline for Aronowitz to respond.
The EBSA didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.
