President Obama: I've Got News For You on Overtime

"President Obama wrote this message to petition signers to announce that the Department of Labor will be finalizing a rule that expands overtime pay to millions of American workers.

I wanted you to be the first to know about some important news on an issue I know you care deeply about: making sure you're paid fairly.

Tomorrow, we're strengthening our overtime pay rules to make sure millions of Americans' hard work is rewarded. If you work more than 40 hours a week, you should get paid for it or get extra time off to spend with your family and loved ones. It's one of most important steps we're taking to help grow middle-class wages and put $12 billion more dollars in the pockets of hardworking Americans over the next 10 years..."
Overtime rule

The life of American workers in 1915

"The nature of work has changed dramatically in the 100 years since the first issue of the Monthly Labor Review (MLR) was published in 1915. That year was a transitional time in the United States. About 15 years earlier, the nation had moved from the Gilded Age—characterized by industrialization, a surge in railroad construction, growth in real wages, and an influx of immigrants—to the Progressive Era, in which industrialization and immigration were joined by social activism, scientific management, modernization, and reform.¹ Starting in the early 1900s and continuing through 1914, an unprecedented wave of European immigration provided the United States with the labor needed for expansion of the prewar economy and growth of cities.² In 1915, the United States was still 2 years away from entering World War I, which had begun a year earlier. The 1920 census shows much growth within urban and suburban areas and within the middle class. The urbanization of America, as well as new methods of management and new technology within both the home and the workplace, were changing the nature of work and the daily lives of workers..."
Workers

How CBO Estimates the Effects of the Affordable Care Act on the Labor Market

"The Affordable Care Act (ACA) will make the labor supply, measured as the total compensation paid to workers, 0.86 percent smaller in 2025 than it would have been in the absence of that law, the Congressional Budget Office estimates. Three-quarters of that decline will occur because of health insurance expansions, which raise effective tax rates on earnings from labor—for instance, by phasing out health insurance subsidies as people’s income rises—and thus reduce the amount of labor that workers choose to supply. The labor force is projected to be about 2 million full-time-equivalent workers smaller in 2025 under the ACA than it would have been otherwise. Those estimates were based mainly on CBO’s calculations of the effects of the law’s major components on marginal and average tax rates and on the agency’s analysis of research about the change in the labor supply resulting from a change in tax rates. For components of the law that were difficult to express in terms of changes in tax rates, CBO based its estimates on a review of the available literature about similar policy changes..."
Affordable Care Act

DOL Resources for Women

"This is a central, comprehensive and searchable repository of Department of Labor resources, tools, and publications of interest to women..."
Resources for Women

A look at pay at the top, the bottom, and in between

"Policymakers and the public have given much attention to economic inequality in the past few years. In general terms, inequality refers to the differences between people with the highest levels of wealth, income, or earnings and those with the lowest levels. How big are these differences? Have they grown over time? What other ways do these groups differ besides how much money they earn?

This Spotlight on Statistics looks at measures of earnings and wages. The Spotlight examines how these measures have changed over time and how they differ within a geographic area, industry, or occupation. The Spotlight also looks at how participation in employee benefit plans differs across wage categories. Finally, the Spotlight looks at how people in different income or earnings categories spend their time and their money..."
Wages and pay

Work Experience of the Population: 2013

"A total of 157.0 million persons worked at some point during 2013, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The proportion of the civilian noninstitutional population age 16 and over who worked at some time during 2013 was 63.5 percent, little different from 63.8 percent in 2012. The number of persons who experienced some unemployment during 2013 decreased by 1.5 million to 20.9 million..."
Work experience

The increased supply of underutilized labor from 2006 to 2014

"The supply of labor and worker productivity are major sources of a nation’s long-term growth in

economic output. The supply of labor depends on the size of a country’s population and the country’s labor force participation rate.

A country’s population size can be affected by its fertility rate, life expectancy, and international migration. In 2012, the fertility rate in the United States was the lowest since data collection began in 1920.

But life expectancy at birth has been rising for a century or more, while the population has increased because of international migration.

In the United States, the labor force participation rate for men has been falling for several decades. The participation rate for women increased for several decades until 1999, but has fallen since..."

Undeveloped labor supply

Employee Benefits in the United States: 2014

"Employer-provided medical care was available to 86 percent of full-time private industry workers in the United States in March 2014, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. By contrast, only 23 percent of part-time workers had medical care benefits available. Access, or availability, also varied by establishment size: 57 percent for workers in small establishments (those with fewer than 100 employees), compared with 84 percent in medium and large establishments (those with 100 employees or more)..."
Employee Benefits

Worker Displacement: 2011 - 2013

"From January 2011 through December 2013, 4.3 million workers were displaced from jobs they had

held for at least 3 years, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. This was down from 6.1 million workers for the prior survey period covering January 2009 to December 2011. In January 2014, 61 percent of workers displaced from 2011 to 2013 were reemployed, up by 5 percentage points from the prior survey in January 2012..."

Worker displacement

The Slow Recovery of the Labor Market

"The deep recession that began in December 2007, when the economy began to contract, and ended in June 2009, when the economy began to expand again, has had a lasting effect on the labor market. More than four and a half years after the end of the recession, employment has risen sluggishly—much more slowly than it grew, on average,during the four previous recoveries that lasted more than one year..."

Labor Maket Recovery

Books that Shaped Work in America

"In honor of its Centennial in 2013, DOL, in partnership with the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress, is developing a list of Books that Shaped Work in America. To get started, we've asked members of the DOL family, as well as many other esteemed individuals, for suggestions. That includes you! Suggest a book to add to the list..."
Books shaped work

Digest of Equal Employment Opportunity Law

"This publication includes feature articles on timely issues in equal employment opportunity law, as well as summaries of recent Commission decisions and federal court cases, as they affect Federal government employees..."
Digest of EEOC Law

Labor Stats

Find labor statistics from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics with this android app from Google Play. 
Labor Stats

Products made by forced or indentured child labor

"The U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of International Labor Affairs today announced a revised "List of Products Produced by Forced or Indentured Child Labor," adding six new products from five countries. Federal contractors supplying products on the list must certify the goods were not produced by forced or indentured child labor in accordance with Executive Order 13126..."
Products made by forced labor

A Prolile of the Working Poor: 2011

Find the latest data on the working poor from a survey by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
A Profile of the Working Poor

Monlthly Labor Review Online

Looking for statistics on the labor market, take a look at issues of the Monthly Labor Review,  an online publication from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Monthly Labor Review online

Measuring Workforce Diversity

"Have you ever wondered about the diversity of your occupation?  What is its demographic composition, age distribution, educational attainment, earnings ranges, percent U.S. citizen, or from where people are commuting?  These questions and more can be answered using the new Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) Tabulation, which will be available tomorrow, Nov. 29..."
Measuring Workforce Diversity

How the Supply of Labor Responds to Changes in Fiscal Policy

"In choosing how much to work, people respond to incentives that are partly determined by taxes on income
from that work and by government benefits that vary with income. Those responses play a critical role in the
Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO’s) analyses of the effects of changes in fiscal policy on economic outcomes..."
https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/10-25-2012-Labor_Supply_and_Fiscal_Policy.pdf

The National Labor Relations Act: Background and Selected Topics

"The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA or “the Act”) recognizes the right of employees to engage in collective bargaining through representatives of their own choosing. By “encouraging the practice and procedure of collective bargaining,” the Act attempts to mitigate and eliminate labor-related obstructions to the free flow of commerce. Although union membership has declined dramatically since the 1950s, congressional interest in the NLRA remains significant. In the 112th Congress, over 30 bills have been introduced to amend the NLRA. Some of these bills address the timing of union representation elections, while others are concerned with varying
aspects of the NLRA, such as the activities of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which implements and administers the Act..."

Federal Labor Relations Statutes: An Overview

"Since 1926, Congress has enacted three major laws that govern labor-management relations for
private sector and federal employees. An issue for Congress is the effect of these laws on
employers, workers, and the nation’s economy. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that,
nationwide, 9.2 million employees are represented by unions. In the 112th Congress alone, more
than 30 bills have been introduced to amend federal labor relations statutes. The proposals range
from making union recognition without a secret ballot election illegal to further modifying runoff
election procedures. This legislative activity, and the significant number of employees affected by
federal labor relations laws, illustrate the current relevance of labor relations issues to legislators
and their constituents..."