My first job was when I was 14, working the express lane for a grocery store after school. The job was easy and I wanted money, what's wrong with that?
I wouldn’t want to subsidize some company’s low wages by lending them my kid at a discount rate, but that’s just me.
I lived and worked in a few places as a teenager, including one where many of my teenage coworkers ended up dropping out of high school to work as close to full-time as they could at the urging of their parents (or grandparents). They worked hard, but I’m sure you can imagine the impact this had on their already shaky prospects. I left and am doing okay, but that wasn’t the norm.
Child labor is a fundamentally different beast across the classes and regions of America, and it’s either naive or disingenuous to pretend kids picking up a little spending money and some life skills is the primary form it takes.
I don't believe in magical thinking. People will do what they need to in order to survive. I understand why people have such a visceral reaction to kids working, but action is generally better than waiting around for someone to save you.
Either we accept the idea that it's moral that someone needs to effectively be a slave to the system to enjoy basic rights such as a roof, food and medical care, or we don't. Age shouldn't play a role in this.
With you on the struggle against modern slavery that is rampant against adults, let's not make it a child/teen only concern, but until then we certainly need to distinguish adults from the to become grown up men and women.
There is a reason we have different moral, legislation and rules w.r.t the treatment of children. That applies to employment, intimate relationships, sales of stimulants, ability to hold a credit cards etc.
All down to the fact all the way to being a teen, humans are still in the process of brain and experiences maturation to take on society and independence on their own, without special protection.
Ah well, who am I kidding? (shovels another load of babies into Mammon's burning maw.)
Fast food is a good example. It went from a mostly teen job to a mostly adult one, are we really better off because of it?
Is this....a trick question? Of course we are. Undeniably so.
You are looking at it from the wrong perspective - it's not about teens being able to make a little money working at McDonalds. It's about letting companies use cheap labour because they know teens aren't in the position to demand good pay and/or benefits. It drags the entire society down, just so you can say teens have the opportunity to work - and for what? Under 18s should stay in full time education, not work in fast food.
>>But from what you guys are saying, you prefer the latter, and I find it extremely distasteful.
I find it extremely distatestul that you seem to prefer a society where teens are part of the labour force to a society where they aren't, so I guess we won't come to an agreement.
You are simply speaking from a position of privilege. The distasteful part I find is that you would refuse them agency to make their lives better and rather they would just wallow in poverty. If you had your way, I would be working for McDonalds rather than a FAANG today. And that is why I'm strongly against this kind of "save the teenagers by harming them" kind of thinking.
Jobs for teenagers develop independence, time management skills, discipline, and a way to improve their situation when society fails. And if you want to wait for society to fix all ills, well, that would be nice, but for the rest of us, we would like to have more say in our destiny.
Again, you are looking at it from the wrong angle. It's not about denying teens their independence, it's not even about "saving them" as you put it. This is 100% about denying companies access to the teenage labour pool, it shouldn't exist, they shouldn't need it, and any business that relies on it should cease. If you do allow it, you basically skew the entire labour market, dragging down the society - let's say that yes, you are an adult in need, who has fallen on hard times. Why should mcdonalds employ you, when they can employ a 16 year old, pay them less and offer them zero benefits. You've screwed yourself, because you want to give teens some fake "independence".
>>Jobs for teenagers develop independence, time management skills, discipline, and a way to improve their situation when society fails.
Yes, because the rest of the world where working until you're 18 is not allowed is just full of morons who have never developed any of those skills, you're right /s.
>>but for the rest of us, we would like to have more say in our destiny.
It's incredible to me that to you "having a say in your destiny" is allowing teenagers work for a corporation like mcdonald. It's like reading some sci-fi.
Now imagine if they didn't have to pay you as much as you were paid, if they didn't have to keep you safe, if you were responsible for injuries on the job, or if you were working in a meat-packing plant where injuries like lost fingers are relatively common.
I don't think anyone is arguing that teenagers should not be allowed to work, but rather that they, like all workers, should be offered protections and reasonable wages if they do choose to work.
https://www.iwpharmacy.com/blog/are-agriculture-workers-exem...
This isn't about that, though. This is about artificially creating a supply of workers by lowering standards, rather than increasing the price for the existing supply of workers.
With a looming demographic bomb looming at the horizon we need to value existing workers more and increase individual productivity rather than removing child protection or workplace safety regulations. Spare time jobs aside, children are the workers of tomorrow -- not means to short-term value for shareholders.
I say this as someone who also worked at 14.
It is a founding myth of the USA that regular people can work labor jobs and have a home and pay for raising children. This happy make-believe has lasted for a while in a few places. It regularly comes apart at the seams, as we are seeing now.
Secondly, many commentators here do not understand that addictive, forced and "no win" products, conditions and living places are the reality for many poor people. Money comes and goes. Watch some non-fiction YouTube about daily life in barrios, coastal South East Asian places, or immigrants in large cities.
edit maybe an additional distinction for context. The British-led industrial revolution started a new series of labor-employer relations.. where, instead of individual workers making one farm or one shoe repair, a set of people could work shifts in an industrial setting, then the goods produced makes a large surplus. The rewards of that surplus allegedly are split, where workers are paid enough to buy them and improve their living. The article here is not about a middle-class high school kid making extra money, it is about fueling industrial work sites with labor from under-18 people, perhaps full-time and perhaps under dangerous conditions, and perhaps with little-to-no transferable skill. This kind of labor is also gamed by middlemen via contracts, deceptive reporting, intimidation and the like.
It seems obvious that more than half the commentators here have no experience with forced or abusive work sites.