The second Trump administration seems intent on doubling down on patriarchal notions of masculinity and an outdated view of women, taking actions that will set back advancements in the labor force by decades and have disastrous impacts on the economy. It is death by a thousand cuts: rolling back protections of reproductive freedom; defining sex as a binary in an executive order; the firing of the women most entrusted with protecting others, such as women on the National Labor Relations Board and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC); combined with a slew of proposed moves such as cutting Medicaid—all of which will leave women in even more precarious economic uncertainty.
Next, the administration might demolish the Women’s Bureau, a century-old research agency within the U.S. Department of Labor with a small budget but a big impact on working women. This move would further undermine any attempts to improve women’s progress and success in the workplace—a cruel irony, as we mark Equal Pay Day—but it also would have disastrous results for all workers and the economy.
The Women’s Bureau Has Achieved a Century of Progress for Working Women and the Economy
Over a hundred years ago, before women won the right to vote, Congress realized that women’s economic security was a part of the fabric of our whole economy. In 1920, Congress created the Women’s Bureau at the U.S. Department of Labor to tackle big issues facing women at work. As the only entity Congressionally mandated to address the needs of working women, the Women’s Bureau has been the eyes and ears of injustice, documenting disparities in the workplace and recommending ways to remedy them.
Some of the problems the Women’s Bureau has tackled over the years include the lack of physically safe work environments with adequate ventilation and fire escapes; people working too long for too little money; women who were fired for being pregnant; workers who didn’t have bathroom or food breaks; and the ongoing and pervasive inequity in wages that continues to this day.
The Women’s Bureau’s recommended solutions to these problems became the foundation of legislation such as the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). The Women’s Bureau helped bring workers the forty-hour work week, through its investigations into working conditions of women in factories. It brought workers job protection for medical emergencies and caregiving. The Women’s Bureau showed how people need accommodations in the workplace for pregnancy and lactation, and Congress responded by passing the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA). The Women’s Bureau has, for a century, conducted foundational research to document hardships in the workplace for women—and the result has been a better workplace for everyone.
In 1920, women comprised just over 20 percent of the labor force, and twice as many Black women were in the labor force compared to white women. By 2022, nearly half the labor force was women. When the Women’s Bureau began, the two occupations that included the most women were in domestic service and teaching. By 2022, teaching and nursing led the pack. And yet, even with gains in college education, women’s earnings continue to fall behind men’s. This earning gap is even greater for women of color.
The Women’s Bureau helps challenge the norms of what is women’s work. Too often, the labor market is segregated into women’s and men’s jobs, and, not surprisingly, women’s career choices are undervalued. There’s two ways to attack this problem—the first is by increasing wages and job quality for feminized work and the second is by increasing the career paths of women into higher paying positions more typically held by men. For the past three decades, the Women’s Bureau has pursued that latter strategy by funding programs that break down barriers for women entering those nontraditional careers, such as trade apprenticeships. Having served thousands of women across the country, the Women in Apprenticeship and Nontraditional Occupations (WANTO) grants are now on the current administration’s chopping block, despite historically strong bipartisan support.
The Women’s Bureau’s Vital Research Would Be Ended
The Women’s Bureau is primarily a research agency, and while it makes recommendations on how to address the challenges working women face identified in its research, it has no levers with which to enforce its proposals. Its value is in conducting and publishing timely research and compelling recommendations for legislators and other agencies and departments to consider and sharing those findings with others across the country.
Recently, for example, the Women’s Bureau conducted research to show how lower pay and ongoing caregiving responsibilities impact women’s overall economic security, particularly how COVID-19 has had a disparate impact on women, especially women of color. Research conducted by the Women’s Bureau has shown that the lack of paid family and medical leave and adequately funded child care has real economic consequences for our nation.
The Women’s Bureau also works on bipartisan efforts to address these problems, including providing technical assistance and support to the Congressional bipartisan working group on paid leave. Women’s Bureau regional staff have also provided technical assistance locally, ensuring working women know about their research and how best to use that information.
Over the past four years, the Women’s Bureau also released data on child care prices. This first of its kind, the National Database of Childcare Prices, provided local data on the price of child care and its impact on women’s ability to participate in the workforce. At the other end of the age range, the Women’s Bureau took a deep dive into data on older women in the workforce.
Unfortunately, Project 2025, sees all of this work as “politicized research” instead of what it is: facts and data that show what it is like to be a woman working in the United States.
If Congressional Republicans and President Trump have their way, the Women’s Bureau will cease to exist. It’s no surprise that an agency focused solely on the needs of working women would be the direct target of this administration, and yet women of all political parties need paid family and medical leave, safe workplaces, fair pay, and healthy working conditions.
In his first administration, President Trump’s budget included slashing funding for the Women’s Bureau, and House Republicans attempted similar efforts last year. Targeting a century-old agency in the federal government that employs fewer than sixty people may seem like a small issue in the larger chaos of this administration’s focus on dismantling the government. The Women’s Bureau does not enforce laws, so the direct impact of its work on the general public is not felt immediately, other than by the civil servants who have dedicated their careers to this work who may soon be jobless. The overall impact, however, will be felt for years to come: an administration, and the Congress that enabled it, will have silenced research on working women. Data will no longer be analyzed for disproportionate impacts on women, funds will no longer support women-specific workforce programs. More importantly, it sends a clear message: a woman’s place is not in the workplace.
The Federal Government Should Enhance Opportunities for Everyone
In many ways, the political struggle America is currently experiencing is centered on the Republican efforts to return our country to one that reveres outdated gender roles. This return to so-called traditional gender roles not only hurts women, it harms everyone. For example, research has shown that women in corporate leadership leads to an increase in profitability. When caregiving policies include men, they create more stable relationships and strengthen family outcomes. More importantly, however, going backward on gender roles limits all people from becoming the best versions of themselves. Recent Pew Center research notes that the majority of people surveyed believe it is highly acceptable for men to take care of the home and children while their wife works. At the same time, 60 percent of respondents say “most people don’t place enough value on men who are caring or open about their emotions.” By creating a more equitable society for everyone, we create more opportunities for men and women to embrace their true selves.
Tags: equal pay day, donald trump, economic justice, women's bureau
Ending the Women’s Bureau Would Be a Step Backward
The second Trump administration seems intent on doubling down on patriarchal notions of masculinity and an outdated view of women, taking actions that will set back advancements in the labor force by decades and have disastrous impacts on the economy. It is death by a thousand cuts: rolling back protections of reproductive freedom; defining sex as a binary in an executive order; the firing of the women most entrusted with protecting others, such as women on the National Labor Relations Board and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC); combined with a slew of proposed moves such as cutting Medicaid—all of which will leave women in even more precarious economic uncertainty.
Next, the administration might demolish the Women’s Bureau, a century-old research agency within the U.S. Department of Labor with a small budget but a big impact on working women. This move would further undermine any attempts to improve women’s progress and success in the workplace—a cruel irony, as we mark Equal Pay Day—but it also would have disastrous results for all workers and the economy.
The Women’s Bureau Has Achieved a Century of Progress for Working Women and the Economy
Over a hundred years ago, before women won the right to vote, Congress realized that women’s economic security was a part of the fabric of our whole economy. In 1920, Congress created the Women’s Bureau at the U.S. Department of Labor to tackle big issues facing women at work. As the only entity Congressionally mandated to address the needs of working women, the Women’s Bureau has been the eyes and ears of injustice, documenting disparities in the workplace and recommending ways to remedy them.
Some of the problems the Women’s Bureau has tackled over the years include the lack of physically safe work environments with adequate ventilation and fire escapes; people working too long for too little money; women who were fired for being pregnant; workers who didn’t have bathroom or food breaks; and the ongoing and pervasive inequity in wages that continues to this day.
The Women’s Bureau’s recommended solutions to these problems became the foundation of legislation such as the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). The Women’s Bureau helped bring workers the forty-hour work week, through its investigations into working conditions of women in factories. It brought workers job protection for medical emergencies and caregiving. The Women’s Bureau showed how people need accommodations in the workplace for pregnancy and lactation, and Congress responded by passing the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA). The Women’s Bureau has, for a century, conducted foundational research to document hardships in the workplace for women—and the result has been a better workplace for everyone.
In 1920, women comprised just over 20 percent of the labor force, and twice as many Black women were in the labor force compared to white women. By 2022, nearly half the labor force was women. When the Women’s Bureau began, the two occupations that included the most women were in domestic service and teaching. By 2022, teaching and nursing led the pack. And yet, even with gains in college education, women’s earnings continue to fall behind men’s. This earning gap is even greater for women of color.
The Women’s Bureau helps challenge the norms of what is women’s work. Too often, the labor market is segregated into women’s and men’s jobs, and, not surprisingly, women’s career choices are undervalued. There’s two ways to attack this problem—the first is by increasing wages and job quality for feminized work and the second is by increasing the career paths of women into higher paying positions more typically held by men. For the past three decades, the Women’s Bureau has pursued that latter strategy by funding programs that break down barriers for women entering those nontraditional careers, such as trade apprenticeships. Having served thousands of women across the country, the Women in Apprenticeship and Nontraditional Occupations (WANTO) grants are now on the current administration’s chopping block, despite historically strong bipartisan support.
The Women’s Bureau’s Vital Research Would Be Ended
The Women’s Bureau is primarily a research agency, and while it makes recommendations on how to address the challenges working women face identified in its research, it has no levers with which to enforce its proposals. Its value is in conducting and publishing timely research and compelling recommendations for legislators and other agencies and departments to consider and sharing those findings with others across the country.
Recently, for example, the Women’s Bureau conducted research to show how lower pay and ongoing caregiving responsibilities impact women’s overall economic security, particularly how COVID-19 has had a disparate impact on women, especially women of color. Research conducted by the Women’s Bureau has shown that the lack of paid family and medical leave and adequately funded child care has real economic consequences for our nation.
The Women’s Bureau also works on bipartisan efforts to address these problems, including providing technical assistance and support to the Congressional bipartisan working group on paid leave. Women’s Bureau regional staff have also provided technical assistance locally, ensuring working women know about their research and how best to use that information.
Over the past four years, the Women’s Bureau also released data on child care prices. This first of its kind, the National Database of Childcare Prices, provided local data on the price of child care and its impact on women’s ability to participate in the workforce. At the other end of the age range, the Women’s Bureau took a deep dive into data on older women in the workforce.
Unfortunately, Project 2025, sees all of this work as “politicized research” instead of what it is: facts and data that show what it is like to be a woman working in the United States.
If Congressional Republicans and President Trump have their way, the Women’s Bureau will cease to exist. It’s no surprise that an agency focused solely on the needs of working women would be the direct target of this administration, and yet women of all political parties need paid family and medical leave, safe workplaces, fair pay, and healthy working conditions.
In his first administration, President Trump’s budget included slashing funding for the Women’s Bureau, and House Republicans attempted similar efforts last year. Targeting a century-old agency in the federal government that employs fewer than sixty people may seem like a small issue in the larger chaos of this administration’s focus on dismantling the government. The Women’s Bureau does not enforce laws, so the direct impact of its work on the general public is not felt immediately, other than by the civil servants who have dedicated their careers to this work who may soon be jobless. The overall impact, however, will be felt for years to come: an administration, and the Congress that enabled it, will have silenced research on working women. Data will no longer be analyzed for disproportionate impacts on women, funds will no longer support women-specific workforce programs. More importantly, it sends a clear message: a woman’s place is not in the workplace.
The Federal Government Should Enhance Opportunities for Everyone
In many ways, the political struggle America is currently experiencing is centered on the Republican efforts to return our country to one that reveres outdated gender roles. This return to so-called traditional gender roles not only hurts women, it harms everyone. For example, research has shown that women in corporate leadership leads to an increase in profitability. When caregiving policies include men, they create more stable relationships and strengthen family outcomes. More importantly, however, going backward on gender roles limits all people from becoming the best versions of themselves. Recent Pew Center research notes that the majority of people surveyed believe it is highly acceptable for men to take care of the home and children while their wife works. At the same time, 60 percent of respondents say “most people don’t place enough value on men who are caring or open about their emotions.” By creating a more equitable society for everyone, we create more opportunities for men and women to embrace their true selves.
Tags: equal pay day, donald trump, economic justice, women's bureau