What Bessent Intends: An Outline of Institutional Change in the Treasury Secretary's Words

Background & Purpose: The U.S. is entering a new institutional era defined by the retreat of public aid and governance shaped by market demands, with implications for social welfare policy and practice. This paper analyzes public statements of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, focusing on how reindustrialization is framed as relief to communities harmed by the policies of the neoliberal era. This paper examines Bessent’s proposals to anticipate their impacts on social work roles and the communities they serve as economic governance shifts.

Methods: This study uses discourse analysis to examine 16 transcribed public statements by Scott Bessent, totaling seven hours of recordings from June 2024 to April 2025. These statements include speeches, media interviews, and appearances at policy institutes and trade associations. Grounded in the anthropology of intentions (Duranti, 2015) and Social Structures of Accumulation theory (Kotz et al., 1994), this analysis treats intentions as orientations toward public action that, when patterned linguistically, signal efforts to reshape social structures and enable new capital formations. Line-by-line coding identified recurring themes across Bessent’s remarks.

Results: Analysis reveals three intentions to achieve social change through economic development rather than direct relief—a shift from compensating displaced workers to reabsorbing them into a revitalized industrial economy. First, Bessent frames reindustrialization in response to public overspending and over-reliance on relief caused when multinational firms offshored production in search of lower labor costs. He frames this intention as a return to “Main Street,” where manufacturing will drive wage gains in communities harmed by corporate withdrawal and the loss of stable employment. Second, Bessent proposes mobilizing corporate capital for domestic reinvestment through trade protection, deregulation, and preditable tax policy—measures aimed at guiding firm behavior while maintaining favorable conditions for “Wall Street” and private equity. These measures aim to redirect capital and supply chains within a broader policy context shaped by immigration limits and the advancement of AI and automation, which reduce low-wage labor and increase demand for value-added production. Third, Bessent promotes a smaller public sector with reduced aid, positioning private employers to absorb both welfare recipients and those who administer relief. Departing from neoliberal trade and compensation strategies, Bessent’s statements signal efforts to deepen private capital accumulation by drawing firms back to U.S. labor markets through fiscal and regulatory incentives.

Conclusions & Implications: Although a single actor, Bessent’s language reflects federal efforts to redefine state–market relations. As public relief is reduced, social services may be expected to support employment-centered approaches that frame labor participation as the path to welfare. Missing from this macro vision is an attention to issues of access and equity needed to ensure stable, fair, and safe employment for groups historically excluded or exploited in deregulated labor markets. Social workers may need to adapt to this narrowed focus, but anticipating these shifts is key to ensuring that efforts to support labor market inclusion remain grounded in the profession’s core values.