Trump's Labor Department Flouts Evidence-Based Policy
News broke last week that the Trump administration is hiding evidence of great importance to the public. No, I’m not talking about the Mueller investigation. The Trump administration lied about evidence that a proposed rule allowing employers to pool workers’ tips would cost these workers billions of dollars in lost wages.
Speaker Ryan claims to be a champion of evidence-based policy, particularly in the realm of policies to cut poverty. In 2015, he sponsored legislation that established a national “Evidence-Based Policymaking Commission.” The Ways and Means Committee that Ryan chaired at the time called it “a key part of House Republicans’ effort to fight poverty.”
Suppressing and then lying about evidence is, of course, the opposite of evidence-based policy. So I have a simple question for Speaker Ryan: Does he condemn the Trump administration’s efforts to hide evidence that would inform policymaking on a key area of antipoverty policy: protections for low-wage workers?
Some background. Back in December, the Trump administration proposed allowing employers to pool workers’ tips and then distribute them to other non-tipped workers or keep them for themselves. This effectively legalizes the practice of stealing tips from workers.
If the policy becomes law, it could cause employees to lose up to $5.8 billion in tips and leave tipped workers more vulnerable to sexual harassment by their bosses. Moreover, the proposal would disproportionately hurt women — who make up an overwhelming share of workers in the restaurant industry — and particularly women of color.
But here’s the rub: The Labor Department knew this would be a likely outcome of its proposal when it issued the rule. Recent reporting from Bloomberg Law shows that the Department’s top brass commissioned an analysis of the proposal that revealed how much money workers could lose, and then ordered staff to revise the methodology to show that workers would lose less. Yet, even after changing the study to fit their policy goals, Labor Department officials still decided to hide the study in their issuance of the rule for comment. Not only did they lie by omission — they also lied explicitly, stating that they “currently lack data to quantify possible reallocations of tips.” In light of the news, various groups are rightly calling for the Department of Labor to withdraw the rule.
This is nothing new for the Trump administration. In September of last year, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Treasury Department had removed from its website evidence showing that trickle-down tax cuts don’t actually help working families. And the Trump administration has tried to undermine scientific inquiry into global warming and climate change.
Discussions of collusion with Russia or obstruction of justice dominate headlines these days, and for good reason. But we should not overlook the administration’s suppression of evidence related to policies that affect real Americans’ lives. Speaker Ryan, “evidence-based” can’t just be a convenient buzzword. So over to you: Will you join us in calling on the Department of Labor to withdraw this rule?
Melissa Boteach is the senior vice president of the Poverty to Prosperity Program at American Progress.
