Local Hiring Gains Steam as Biden Pushes Infrastructure, Equity

The Department of Transportation is aiming to reinstate a program the Trump administration scrapped that would allow local hiring requirements to be added to federally funded infrastructure projects.

Transition officials and congressional Democrats are pushing Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to implement a local-hire program, arguing that workers—particularly those in disadvantaged demographics—should have a hand in building big-ticket infrastructure projects in their communities. Attention is growing as the Biden administration sells its infrastructure vision on Capitol Hill, and Buttigieg has publicly expressed interest in such requirements.

DOT can unilaterally restore a pilot initiative, launched by the Obama administration in 2015, that ...