Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, center, and Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta, right, arrive for a teacher appreciation reception at the White House last month. The Education Department is one of the smallest federal government agencies Photo: saul loeb/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

 

By Michelle Hackman

 

The White House is set to propose merging the Labor and Education departments as part of a broader reorganization of the federal government, said a person with knowledge of the changes.

 

An announcement is planned for Thursday morning, after a monthslong review of cabinet agencies with an eye toward shrinking the federal government.

 

The changes would require approval from Congress, but it isn’t clear that lawmakers have the appetite to undertake a far-reaching reorganization, especially at this point in the political calendar.

 

Lawmakers have shown reluctance to embrace such plans in the past, and Congress has limited time for major legislation before the November midterm elections. Previous proposals to eliminate agencies, including the departments of education and energy, have made little headway.

 

Streamlining the executive branch has been a longtime conservative goal. The new plan also meshes with the administration’s priority of retooling higher-education programs to train students more directly to join the workforce.

 

The White House has championed plans to expand access to apprenticeships, for example, and the Education Department has moved to deregulate the controversial for-profit college industry, which often focuses on school-to-workforce training programs, but has been plagued by scandals.

 

Spokespeople for the White House and Labor Department declined to comment. Representatives at the Education Department couldn't immediately be reached for comment.

 

The administration has also been weighing changes at the Department of Health and Human Services, such as consolidating safety-net programs under HHS. That could accompany a renaming of the department to something similar to its name in the 1970s, when it was called the Department of Health, Education and Welfare.

 

HHS oversees Medicaid and other social assistance programs, while school meals and the food stamp program, formally called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, are run by the Department of Agriculture. The Treasury and Department of Housing and Urban Development oversee still other programs.

 

The Education Department is one of the smallest federal government agencies, with about 3,900 employees. Its workforce has shrunk by more than 10% since President Donald Trump took office, with Education Secretary Betsy DeVos enforcing a departmentwide hiring freeze.

 

The department’s largest division oversees $1.4 trillion in federal student loans, and the department is also responsible for distributing K-12 education dollars and enforcing civil rights laws at public schools and higher education institutions.

 

The Labor Department, for its part, has about 15,000 employees whose responsibilities range from enforcing federal minimum wage laws to overseeing worker training programs. Its biggest division is the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which produces the monthly jobs report and other economic data.

 

About half of Labor Department employees work in various enforcement divisions, overseeing worker and mine safety and wage and hour rules.

 

Republican lawmakers during the Clinton administration proposed merging the departments of Education and Labor, along with the equal employment opportunities commission, naming it the Department of Education and Employment. At the time, the Government Accountability Office predicted an agency would have a budget of $71 billion and employ 25,000 people.

 

Seth Harris, deputy labor secretary during President Barack Obama’s administration, called the proposal to merge the agencies a “solution in search of a problem.” Beyond eliminating one cabinet secretary’s salary, he said there’s little cost savings to be found because only one Labor division, Employment and Training, works closely with Education.

 

“There won’t be savings if the new department has the same mandates and programs the two need to carry out,” Mr. Harris said.

 

The Education and Labor departments have worked more closely together since the 2014 passage of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, which called for coordination on on training. For example, Labor programs providing training to dislocated workers are intended to be done in conjunction with Education programs focused on adult education and vocational rehabilitation.

 

“Since the passage of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, the department is working closer than ever with the Department of Education to align workforce education programs, plans, and performance requirements,” Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta told lawmakers last year.

 

—Stephanie Armour
contributed to this article