DOL to receive $13.7B in new budget

As Congress rushes to avoid another shutdown, it has a bipartisan agreement to provide the Department of Labor (DOL) with a budget of $13.7 billion for the remainder of fiscal year (FY) 2026. The budget would provide the Wage and Hour Division (WHD) with $260 million and surprisingly $101 million for the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP), despite the Trump administration’s proposal to eliminate the agency.

DOL announces it recovered more than $259M in FY2025

The DOL announced it had recovered $259 million in back wages for nearly 177,000 employees during FY2025. According to DOL, this was the most money recovered since 2019. The WHD recovery was over $184 million in 2025, more than the $150 million recovered in 2024. The DOL noted that certain sectors—“low wage, high violation”—were overrepresented in the data including food services (which had 4,088 violations resolved in the amount of $42M) and healthcare (which had 2,370 violations resolved in the amount of $53M).

New DOL opinion letters

On January 5, 2025, the WHD announced the issuance of six new opinion letters “to promote clarity, consistency, and transparency in the application of federal labor standards” under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). The WHD describes opinion letters as “official written interpretations from the division that address real-world questions and explain how laws apply to specific factual circumstances presented by individuals or organizations, that may also have a broader interest to those impacted by the issue presented.”