Figure D
Number of federal wage and hour investigators is near its historic low: Number of Wage and Hour Division investigators, U.S. Department of Labor, 1973–2021
Year | Investigators on board at year’s end |
---|---|
1973 | 812 |
1974 | 869 |
1975 | 921 |
1976 | 964 |
1977 | 980 |
1978 | 1,232 |
1979 | 1,087 |
1980 | 1,059 |
1981 | 953 |
1982 | 914 |
1983 | 928 |
1984 | 916 |
1985 | 950 |
1986 | 908 |
1987 | 951 |
1988 | 952 |
1989 | 970 |
1990 | 938 |
1991 | 865 |
1992 | 835 |
1993 | 804 |
1994 | 800 |
1995 | 809 |
1996 | 781 |
1997 | 942 |
1998 | 942 |
1999 | 938 |
2000 | 949 |
2001 | 945 |
2002 | 898 |
2003 | 850 |
2004 | 788 |
2005 | 773 |
2006 | 751 |
2007 | 732 |
2008 | 731 |
2009 | 894 |
2010 | 1,035 |
2011 | 1,024 |
2012 | 1,067 |
2013 | 1,040 |
2014 | 976 |
2015 | 995 |
2016 | 974 |
2017 | 912 |
2018 | 835 |
2019 | 780 |
2020 | 823 |
2021 | 782 |
Note: Numbers represent Wage and Hour Division investigators on staff at the end of each year.
Sources: Author’s analysis of Wage and Hour Division (WHD) data on number of investigators from unpublished Excel files provided by WHD staff members to the author. Source for 2020 and 2021 is Rebecca Rainey, “Wage-Hour Investigator Hiring Plans Signal DOL Enforcement Drive,” Bloomberg Law, January 28, 2022.
This chart appears in:
- Federal labor standards enforcement in agriculture: Data reveal the biggest violators and raise new questions about how to improve and target efforts to protect farmworkers
- Second-class workers: Assessing H-2 visa programs’ impact on workers
- Threatening migrants and shortchanging workers: Immigration is the government’s top federal law enforcement priority, while labor standards enforcement agencies are starved for funding and too understaffed to adequately protect workers