The Plain Writing Act of 2010
The Plain Writing Act of 2010 requires federal agencies to write "clear Government communication that the public can understand and use." President Obama also emphasized the importance of establishing "a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration" in his January 21, 2009, Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government.
The U.S. Department of Labor has been committed to writing documents in plain language since 2011, using the Federal Plain Language Guidelines.
Let us know if you have trouble understanding our documents or the pages on our website.
We have assigned staff to oversee our plain language efforts:
- William E. Spriggs, Assistant Secretary for Policy, Senior Official for Plain Language
- Kathleen E. Franks, Director of Regulatory and Programmatic Policy, OASP, Plain Language Coordinator
We're training our employees and have established an oversight process to ensure that we use plain language in any document that:
- is necessary for obtaining any federal government benefit or service or filing taxes;
- provides information about any federal government benefit or service; or
- explains to the public how to comply with a requirement that the federal government administers or enforces.
Please let us know if we haven't written a document in plain language: plainlanguage@dol.gov.
