Top Wage Enforcer Focused on Being ‘as Protective as Possible’

With just a year left in President Joe Biden’s first term, the next several months could be some of the most challenging for the newly confirmed head of the Wage and Hour Division as the agency races to wrap up major policy changes while grappling with increased enforcement needs.

The Senate’s Oct. 25 vote to confirm Jessica Looman as the administrator of the WHD—the Labor Department subagency tasked with enforcing minimum wage, child labor, and more than a dozen other laws—was largely procedural, as Looman has been serving as the temporary head of the division since June 2021. She was originally appointed to serve as the second in command before being nominated to serve as administrator in July 2022.

Under her leadership, the wage division has issued new regulations raising the rate of pay for workers on federally funded construction projects, raising the minimum wage for federal contractors to $15, and limiting when employers can pay tipped workers a lower minimum wage, among other efforts. The agency has also launched its largest ever enforcement initiative to curb exploitative child labor, and deployed special investigations related to migrant farmworkers.

But with only months before the 2024 elections, Looman will face some of her biggest tests as agency leader. The wage division is wrapping up two separate rulemakings that would expand overtime protections to more workers and would make it harder for workers to be classified as independent contractors, key policy changes sought by advocates and Democrats that the administration says will level the playing field for workers.

But both regulations are expected to draw lawsuits from business groups. And if the agency is unable to finalize them before the 2024 elections, they could easily be canceled or repealed if a different administration is elected.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Looking back over the work the Wage Division has completed during this administration, what has been your approach as you’ve led the agency—albeit under a different title?

What I have been focused on and what I continue to focus on, because I do think it is the best way to enforce the laws under our authority, but also because I really do believe that it’s best for both workers and employers, is sort of thinking about the work of the Wage and Hour Division in three components.

We continue to think about prevention. We continue to think about how we make sure that workers are paid correctly on pay day. And that’s through outreach and education and partnerships, and making sure that we’re very much engaged with the employer community. Making sure that we’re really thinking ahead to where violations occur, and how do we help educate folks so they understand the rights and responsibilities before it even happens? That is the first place that we start every single time.

The second component of the work that we’ve been doing is this compliance component. We think about regulations, we think about separate regulatory guidance, we think about early detection and correction of issues. We think about that from a compliance perspective in the different types of laws that we are charged with enforcing and the different types of programs that we have. How do we make sure that we have sufficient compliance assistance, and make sure that everyone is successful?

The third component, of course, is enforcement.

With the clock running down in the first term of the Biden administration what’s your focus over these next few months?

We have a lot of momentum and we really want to build on that momentum and keep a lot of the work that we have been doing going and growing.

We’ve been focused on and we’ll continue to focus on making sure that we’re addressing misclassification of employees as independent contractors, that’s an area where we are very concerned, particularly for the most low wage and vulnerable workers.

We’re also focused on retaliation—preventing and addressing retaliation against workers who speak up and speak out about violations of their wage and hour protections. We are continuing to work on making sure that we’re creating and developing good jobs using the Davis-Bacon regulation, but also, as we’re partnering across the administration, to think about how we make sure that when you’re using federal purchasing power that we are creating sustainable jobs.

Child labor has been an area of focus for us for the last year. And the work that our investigators are doing to really identify and address child labor exploitation is unprecedented in the history of the Wage and Hour Division, in terms of using all of the tools at our disposal, our focus, our effort, our thinking. It’s really innovative and exciting in terms of how we are using the limited resources that we have in the most impactful and effective way to hold employers accountable when they are violating child labor laws.

Just in the last year, we issued about $8 million in civil money penalties. We did more child labor investigations, unfortunately we found more children working in violation. And that’s because it’s really incumbent upon us that this is a responsibility that we have to protect kids in the workplace and make sure that they’re safe. So we will continue that work.

We’re leading the interagency task force on child labor exploitation. We’re learning so much about what impact other departments and agencies can have across the government. The Department of Education is getting out the word about what safe work looks like and really amplifying our Youth Rules program about best practices. And then we are also working with our partners across the administration, like the Department of Agriculture, who’s helping us do outreach to meatpacking and food processing plants so that we can raise awareness about and prevent, but also when we do find violations, hold accountable employers who are employing kids in violation.

Fundamentally, we will continue to focus on addressing wage theft. In this administration already we have found more than $700 million in back wages for about 470,000 workers. That’s the everyday work of the Wage and Hour Division, to identify violations, to hold employers accountable, to help get employers into compliance. And then again, make sure that the wages that should be in workers’ pockets are actually getting to the workers. So we’re going to continue all of that work.

Are you concerned at all by the potential time limits presented by the Congressional Review Act?

We’re doing the work, and we’re continuing to focus on the work.

We have amazing leadership here at the Wage and Hour Division in our policy development team, but also in partnership with the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Policy and the solicitor’s office.

The final rule on independent contractors is currently under interagency review. And so that’s an important part of the process and the development of a final rule. And then we’re in the comment period for a proposal that we put out around making sure that we had the appropriate, meaningful salary threshold under the overtime regulation. It’s also really important that we get feedback and input and comments from a whole diverse range of folks.

I certainly believe, while we have incredibly smart, committed and focused folks in the Wage and Hour Division, not all the good ideas come from within the four walls of our agency. And so really making sure that we are getting input and feedback, so that we really have policies that meet the needs of our current workforce, the current economy, but also thinking about the future workforce in the future economy.

Would it be accurate to say the division has taken an all of government approach in its work, given the various memorandums of understanding that have been signed during this administration?

There’s two different ways that we’re really thinking about that. I see the Wage and Hour Division as a part of a network of local, state, and federal worker protection agencies. When we think about it in that way, we recognize that there are only so many limited resources in each component. And so how do we make sure that we are maximizing our impact, outreach education, all of the things that we can do across that whole network?

The other way that we really think about it is that workers and employers have other things that they need to be doing than navigating government. And so we’re really trying to think about this from the experience of the worker. How do we as a government, meet them where they are given the information they need? So they don’t need to figure out how to navigate three different agencies to meet their needs.

So that’s how we’re thinking about our MOUs. That’s how we’re thinking about our partnerships across government. Instead of this authority-based work, we’re trying to think about the experience-based services that we can provide to workers and employers, and everyone who really needs to interact with us.

What can workers and the regulated community expect now that you’ve been confirmed?

I do believe that everybody in the our division, literally, wakes up every day to help 165 million workers. We will continue to focus on how we make the Wage and Hour Division as worker protective as possible, but also really think about our strategic partnerships. We will be continuing to think about how we are making an impact on not just individual workers or individual workplaces, but sectors and industries and communities and the economy as a whole.