The number of minors employed in violation of child labor laws increased 37% in the last year.
Remarkably, this year, legislators in 6 states (IA, MN, MO, NE, OH, SD) have proposed 8 bills that make it easier to exploit kids for profit.
We live in the Second Gilded Age.
What this report finds: States across the country are attempting to weaken child labor protections, just as violations of these standards are rising. This report identifies bills weakening child labor standards in eight states that have been introduced or passed in the past two years alone. It provides background on child labor standards and the coordinated push to weaken them, discusses the context in which these laws are being changed, and explains the connection between child labor and the United States’ broken immigration system. It also provides data showing that declines in labor force participation among young adults reflect decisions to obtain more education in order to increase their long-term employability and earnings, and that nearly all youth currently seeking work report being able to find it. Why it matters: Federal laws providing minimum protections for child labor were enacted nearly a century ago, leading many to assume that children working in grueling and/or dangerous jobs was a thing of the past. In fact, violations of child labor laws are on the rise, as are attempts by state lawmakers to weaken the standards that protect children in the workplace. What lawmakers can do about it: This report provides policy recommendations for lawmakers at both the federal and state levels. At the federal level, Congress should heed calls to increase penalties for child labor violations and address chronic underfunding of agencies that enforce labor standards, eliminate occupational carve-outs that allow for weaker standards in agricultural employment, pass the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, and implement immigration reforms that curb the exploitation of unauthorized immigrants and unaccompanied migrant youth. At the state level, lawmakers should eliminate subminimum wages for youth and raise the minimum wage, eliminate the two-tiered system that fails to protect children from hazardous or excessive work in agriculture, strengthen labor standards enforcement, and empower young people to build and strengthen unions.
As my sister reminded me just now, we started working the fields at 10 for nearly nothing except food. It was to help my uncle plant and pull in his crops. It was hard, hot and occasionally hazardous work. I don’t wish that on any kid but I know it still happens.
We need to protect all kids from this insidious campaign. We have come so far, don’t backslide now. Above all else, don’t allow “them” to take pride in false truths.
I started work at 13 (long ago) to help pay household bills for reasons I don’t remember.
School became second fiddle until I decided that college was a requirement for me to get out. Learning to work 12 - 16 hours a day (including school) was hard but I did it.
BUT, I would not wish that reality on anyone. It was not fun and really helped screw up my health later in life. Children in our society should have fun without adult stressors like work.
@rbreich Correction: REPUBLICAN legislators in six states have proposed 8 bills that make it easier to exploit kids for profit.
The context regarding who is doing this is vital to understand the sick GOP motives to try to haul America back to the 19th century.
@rbreich
I won't favor this because I hate it. It highlights the trend toward treating people as mere cogs to support the machine of businesses. I consider this a side effect of capitalism and such nonsense as thinking of businesses as people.
Better alternative if you have a worker shortage is to allow more immigration.
This article, which is the second of a two-part series on child labor, describes legislative efforts to curtail the employment of children in the late 1800s and the first half of the 1900s.
I'm worried that the meatpacking industry is looking to hire children because they are less likely to die from Covid-19. It's not as villainously farfetched as it might seem at first blush. Netanyahu was dead serious when he suggested using children to scrub mass transit early in the pandemic. Using kids to do high risk work is a strategy to avoid regulation by keeping deaths low. Kids may not die from ARDS as frequently as adults, but they're developing sequelae at parity with them.
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