2025 Look-ahead: What Does a New Administration Mean for the Contract Cleaning Industry?

On Monday, Jan. 20, President-elect Donald J. Trump will be sworn in for his second term. The dynamics in Washington, D.C., as he returns look notably different from the government he left four years ago, and even in comparison to his first inauguration in 2017. Below are some of the key policy and legislative areas that will impact the cleaning industry in the second Trump term and guidance on what to expect as the administration begins to implement its vision during the first 100 days and beyond.

Immigration

Perhaps the signature policy priority of the incoming Trump Administration, increased immigration enforcement, will begin early in the year as President-elect Trump and his team seek to make good on promises to harden the border and conduct mass deportations of individuals in the United States illegally. While incoming Border Czar Tom Homan, who served as acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the first Trump term, has indicated an immediate focus on deportation activity and workplace raids in large urban areas — particularly those with sanctuary protections — he has also tempered those expectations with an indication that they will initially seek to target individuals who have committed crimes. Additional enforcement efforts are also likely to be hamstrung by an immigration system and workforce that is already struggling to keep up with current detention activities.

In response to those constraints, the Trump Administration will be working with Congress to increase funding and resources for border enforcement. However, even if more funding is approved, it will take time for the relevant federal departments to scale up.

In the meantime, the limited nature of federal resources opens the possibility of an increased reliance on I-9 audits, which could return to the historically high levels seen from 2016-2020. Commercial and contract cleaning business owners should review employee immigration documentation now and consult with their labor and employment counsel to ensure they are positioned as well as possible in the event of potential audits or worksite enforcement actions. 

Tax Policy

Many of the incoming Trump Administration’s priorities relate to the extension and reauthorization of the signature fiscal policy from his first term — the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA). Extending the temporary aspects of TCJA beyond their current expiration in 2025 is a top priority for the second term. TCJA included many provisions important for building service contractors and other small businesses, including establishing a 20% deduction for pass-through businesses. Extension of these provisions will be a benefit to many businesses both large and small.

President-elect Trump has also floated new tax cuts, such as eliminating taxes on income earned through tips or via overtime, adjusting the deduction limit for state and local taxes (SALT), and further reducing the corporate tax rate. It remains unclear whether these proposals will receive serious consideration, not least because they further increase the cost of the TCJA extension, or if they can be chalked up to campaign rhetoric.

Trade and Tariffs

The focus of President-elect Trump’s trade and tariff agenda has centered on the proposed 60% tariffs for all imports from China, but his protectionist proposals are much broader and include universal baseline tariffs of 10%-20%. If implemented, these tariffs would necessarily increase costs across the board for products and equipment used by commercial and contract cleaning companies that are manufactured outside of the United States; it will even impact domestic products and equipment to the extent those items use foreign components. For existing customers, contractors should review their contracts to see to what extent, if any, increased costs due to tariffs can be recouped. For new business contracts, prices will need to be increased to reflect tariff-related costs.

Labor and Employment

The Trump coalition has done much to shatter the historical alignment of organized labor with Democrats, with significant numbers of union members casting their votes for President-elect Trump in last fall’s election. One of the biggest open questions is how much this shift of union voters to President-elect Trump influences labor policy, which has tended to be quite employer-friendly under Republican Administrations, including the first Trump term.

Nowhere is this dichotomy more apparent than in President-elect Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Labor, former congresswoman Lori Chavez-DeRemer — a pro-labor Republican who recently lost her re-election campaign last year and was supported for the position by Teamsters President Sean O’Brien. While the Department of Labor appointment is significant, any shift in labor policy will depend on more than just one position.

There are also a number of vacancies on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). The NLRB General Counsel has historically changed over during transitions between administrations. This uncertainty makes it difficult to predict the long-term outlook but, in the short term, employers can expect to see quick and beneficial action on efforts to overturn or halt several Biden-era workplace policies — including joint employer regulations and future increases in salary thresholds for overtime eligibility.