Again, at the risk of sounding coldly analytical about it, while I'm grateful child labor laws were put in place, I don't think they actually did much to alleviate the underlying reasons and experiences of why children were put to work (by their parents or exploiters or themselves) in those days. Suddenly outlawing children from working didn't miraculously make their lives better or lift them out of poverty. Stopping people from taking those jobs merely stopped them from making their desperation visible (and of course obviously yes, from dying in horrible conditions they probably had no idea they were signing up for). It was other efforts and initiatives improving the standard of living that made the difference.

I do think such laws have a very good and important role to play where people don't fully know what they've agreed to. If someone wants to get a job by offering their labor for less than his next competitor and is going into it with full information, I don't think we should act like we're doing him a favor by stopping him from doing so. Stopping someone from taking a less than minimum wage job has not alleviated their situation.

Again, just dispassionate observation -- mandating whatever number of sick days per year may be a humane gesture, but it doesn't change the underlying fact that there is a surplus of willing labor in this country willing to take jobs at these pay rates that even don't have any such benefits.

Efforts by unions to say that their political power and striking/etc led to change in our standard of living are conveniently mixed up with the rising general demand for labor and wages because we were a growing country willing to pay for relatively scarce labor at the time. Those conditions are not the same now.