Primary: How the DOL influences the American Workforce

100 Years Ago in 1913, the Department of Labor was created with the intentions, "to foster, promote, and develop the welfare of working people, to improve their working conditions, and to enhance their opportunities for profitable employment". The initial DOL combined the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Bureau of Immigration, the Bureau of Naturalization, and the Children's Bureau with the newly formed U.S. Conciliation Service. "Though its long, varied, and often controversial career, the Department of Labor has functioned as an investigator, regulator, mediator, and law enforcer". The DOL has had grim years such as in the 1920's when they got their funding slashed by congress. The Great Depression and President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal revived the DOL. The DOL was needed in the Great Depression because people were being laid off for an extended period of time, and people needed a way to survive without jobs. The New Deal was important because... It is a recent topic in the 1970's for the DOL to include the health, safety, and retirement plans of the nation's workers. The new deal gave relief to the unemployed and the poor, recovery of the economy, and reform of the financial system to prevent a repeat depression.