Kalmanovitz Practitioner Fellow Debbie Berkowitz Quoted in AFL-CIO Report “Death on the Job: The Toll of Neglect”

The AFL-CIO’s 35th Annual ‘Death on the Job’ Report provides a national and state-by-state analysis of workers’ health and safety and policy recommendations for how the government can better protect workers

(Washington, D.C.)—Workers are dying and being injured on the job as the Trump administration cuts essential funding and staffing and directs resources away from the agencies and policies that protect workers and hold employers accountable, according to a new report released today by the AFL-CIO.

Ahead of Workers Memorial Day on April 28, the AFL-CIO released its 35th annual “Death on the Job: The Toll of Neglect” report, a comprehensive analysis of the state of workers’ health and safety at the national and state levels. Findings include:

Workplace hazards kill approximately 140,000 workers each year in the United States—more than 380 workers each day.
5,070 workers died from traumatic injury on the job in 2024, the latest year of data available, and an estimated 135,000 died from occupational diseases. An estimated 530 workers died from heat alone.
Black workers still die on the job at a disproportionately higher rate than the national average.
Latino workers continue to face the greatest risk of dying on the job in 2024, at a rate 30% higher than the national average. Of the Latino workers who died, 68.5% were immigrants, a larger percentage than in previous years.
The rate of young worker deaths has nearly doubled since 2020, and workers ages 65 and older are nearly three times as likely to die on the job than other workers.
Workplace injuries create an enormous burden on the economy, costing an estimated $177 billion to $354 billion a year.
Underreporting is widespread, and the true toll of work-related injuries and illnesses is estimated to be between 5.0 million and 7.5 million each year in private industry.

Since the AFL-CIO’s first “Death on the Job” report 35 years ago, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA’s) responsibilities and coverage have grown immensely at the same time that its resources have been attacked and drastically cut. The new report shows that the Trump administration’s policies and gutting of workplace safety agencies will only drive up these numbers. The number of OSHA inspectors is now only 5.0 per 1 million workers—the lowest in at least 45 years—which means each workplace can only be inspected once every 191 years. The agency’s current budget allows it to spend only $3.85 per worker.

The administration has stopped conducting Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) impact inspections, proposed to eliminate critical research from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), attempted to remove dozens of OSHA and MSHA standards from the books, and moved to dismantle the regulatory process. And Trump’s Department of Labor is making it easier every day for billionaire CEOs and corporations to dodge their obligations to workers, shifting agencies from enforcing the law and holding employers accountable to promoting “self-audit” programs for employers.

“Every worker should be able to go home safe and healthy at the end of their shift—but 55 years after the founding of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, that fundamental right is in danger,” said AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler. “From the dismantling of critical federal agencies and laws to the expansion of unregulated, untested AI technology, the protections that workers fought and died for are under serious threat. The labor movement refuses to go backward. More than 5 decades after a Republican signed the landmark Occupational Safety and Health Act into law, we urge all members of Congress—from both sides of the aisle—to join us in this fight.”

“It is a disgrace that in 2026, being Black, Latino or an immigrant can still be a death sentence on the jobsite,” said AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Fred Redmond. “Our new report makes it terrifyingly clear that the Trump administration’s anti-DEI, mass deportation agenda will only make this crisis worse. When workers are afraid that reporting threats to their safety could result in their work permits being revoked and their families being ripped apart, and when employers fear that reporting workplace data will hurt their bottom line, we are all less safe: workers of color and white workers, immigrant workers and U.S.-born workers. We must fight the Trump administration’s attacks on communities of color like our fellow workers’ lives are on the line—because they are.”

The 2025 “Death on the Job” report comes just before Workers Memorial Day, when the labor movement remembers those who have suffered injury or illness or lost their lives on the job and renews the fight to prevent these tragedies. The AFL-CIO, its state and local labor federations, and affiliated unions will turn out to call attention to this crisis throughout the week at events across the country.

The full 2026 “Death of the Job: The Toll of Neglect” report can be found here.