WASHINGTON, Feb. 1 (UPI) -- The U.S. Labor Department's $14 billion budget for fiscal year 2011 is slightly lower than the department's current budget, officials said.
The budget blueprint, released Monday, would reform the Workforce Investment Act, which accounts for $10 billion of funding in the departments of Labor and Education, and supports nearly 3,000 career centers nationwide and a range of other services, the Office of Management and Budget said in a fact sheet.
The department's fiscal year 2010 budget is $14.3 billion.
Another $85 million would be allocated for green job training, providing support for about 14,000 participants, and another $40 million for transitional jobs programs.
The department would receive $25 million and 100 additional enforcement personnel for the Labor Department, in conjunction with Treasury, to identify and punish employers wrongly misclassifying employees as independent contractors.
The department's Occupational Safety and Health Administration would receive $573 million, some of which would be used for 60 additional enforcement staff and an increase in inspections.
The budget would create a system of automatic workplace pensions to expand access to tens of millions of workers currently without pensions. Under the proposal, employers that don't offer a retirement plan would be required to enroll their employees in a direct-deposit IRA account. Employees could opt out and firms with 10 employees or less would be exempted.
The budget would double the tax credit for small employers to offer a qualified retirement plan to their workers, from $500 to $1,000 per year, for a maximum of three years.
The blueprint would expand families' access to paid leave through a new $50 million fund to help states launch paid-leave programs cover their start-up costs.
