President Donald J. Trump signed a proclamation designating Monday, Sept. 7, 2026, as Labor Day, using the annual ceremonial document to catalog what his administration says it has delivered for American workers.
The proclamation was signed Sept. 4, 2026, and released by the White House on Sept. 7.
Economic claims in the document
The proclamation states that companies are returning to the United States, “investing trillions of dollars into the United States economy, and adding over 900,000 American jobs.” The document does not identify a time period for the job figure or cite a data source.
It also says that, as a result of “landmark trade deals,” American manufacturing “has expanded for 6 months straight,” and that “more auto plants are being built in America today than ever before.” The proclamation does not specify which measure of manufacturing activity the six-month figure refers to.
On trade policy, the President said his “protective tariffs” are shielding U.S. workers “from unfair foreign competition, ensuring that their labor is honored, their businesses are defended, and their jobs remain on American soil.” The proclamation does not list the tariffs or the goods covered.
Tax law and small business deduction
The document says the President signed the Working Families Tax Cuts Act into law last year, describing it as “making the largest tax cuts in American history permanent and boosting take-home pay for millions of hardworking families.”
According to the proclamation, the law also makes the small business tax deduction permanent, allowing small business owners to deduct 20 percent of their qualified business income. Qualified business income generally refers to net income from a pass-through business — a structure in which profits are taxed on the owner’s individual return rather than at the corporate level.
Proposed H-1B fee
The proclamation states that the administration is “proposing a new fee on H-1B visa petitions that will encourage companies to invest in qualified Americans before looking overseas for labor.” The H-1B is a visa category for foreign workers in specialty occupations. The document gives no dollar amount for the proposed fee, no effective date, and no description of the mechanism by which it would be imposed.
The formal action
Under the authority cited in the document — the Constitution and the laws of the United States — the President proclaimed Sept. 7, 2026, as Labor Day and called upon “all public officials and people of the United States to observe this day with appropriate programs, ceremonies, and activities that honor the contributions and resilience of working Americans.”
A proclamation of this kind is a ceremonial instrument. It does not by itself create the federal holiday, appropriate funds or change regulations.
Source: White House, “Labor Day, 2026” (Presidential Actions, Proclamations), signed September 4, 2026, released September 7, 2026. The economic figures in this article are as stated in the proclamation; the document provides no underlying data, time periods or citations for them, and they have not been independently verified here.