This is such a strange thing for legislatures to prioritize weakening child labor laws and not generally care about how these minors got here. It just shows that special interests drive the legislative process.
It’s not strange to me. A lot of conservative people I knew growing up would think this is great.
Having a job is a moral obligation and making kids work is good for them. It’s what the Bible says: spare the rod, spoil the child.
Same goes with minimum wages laws. They are oppressive to businesses and make them pay people more than they are worth.
Anything that gets in the way of people’s freedom to do as they please (including exploiting others) is bad.
They think that the market will prevent abuses because people can just walk away and find a less exploitive job. It’s your responsibility to not be exploited.
I wouldn't call myself hardcore conservative but what's wrong with this ? Would you rather have your 15 year old sit home all day playing video games or get a real life job where they could learn a few valuable skills ? Honest question and not trying to troll. As an American, I am seeing our kids being over protected and the result is a bunch of 20 year olds who have no direction and have never faced hardship to prepare for the real world.
Instead the debate turns to them working. Who benefits from this? It's not even close to being the average person in one of these states.
It's so transparent. The worst part is that these jobs in question suck so badly that the only way they can find workers is by lobbying to grab people who have less labor power. Rather than properly existing as part of a free market and paying people more.
The issue most people take with this is that it compares the best outcome of one version with the worst version of the other. If we want to compare the worst outcomes then we should be talking about the difference between children idling playing video games versus children being exploited in workplaces.
The benefits of work and summer jobs aren't the stakes here, not being coerced into doing manual labor during long night shifts is. The idea of saying "at least they aren't playing videogames" is so absurd to me, it'd be like looking at a homeless person and saying "at least they aren't wasting money on uber eats!".
This article isn't about legislation giving children a sense of direction are building their fortitude through work. For one thing, I very much doubt there is any jurisdiction with a blanket prohibition on child or youth labour when the work environment is safe and the boundaries are well defined. Child labour laws are about protecting a vulnerable population from the types of abuses that have existed historically. Those protections aren't perfect. For example: having a parent sign a form to grant permission implies parental and government oversight, but it does not guarantee it. On the other hand, it is better than nothing. The motivation of those wishing to remove those protections should be considered seriously, particularly when they tout the supposed benefits to the people they are being put into a position to exploit.
The second part of this sentence is not obviously false to me. Kids working exploitative & dangerous jobs, yes that's bad. Kids being allowed to work in general, I think is good.
I like Simon Sarris's take on this, from:
https://simonsarris.substack.com/p/the-most-precious-resourc...
> I find it striking just how early, and how varied, the avenues were that allowed one to pivot off-script, to do something differently than everyone else. For a 13 year old today, what is the equivalent of being a telegraph office boy, where he can learn technology while contributing? What about for a 16 year old? 21 year old? What is today’s equivalent to being a studio apprentice of Verrocchio?
You’re picking one sentence I used as context for the rest of my comment.
Regarding the telegram office, I’m pretty sure 13 year olds have a lot more schoolwork than they did in 1850. I frequently had days I spent all day in school and spent most of the night on homework.
I'm not saying that was good, but comparing 13-year olds then and today is hard. 13-year olds then were basically already adults.
It's systemic racism and inequality. As long as we pretend everyone has equal opportunities, then we can make simple claims as you do.
>For a 13 year old today, what is the equivalent of being a telegraph office boy
The internet. Youtube. Udemy. MIT free courses.
Of course the claims will be about only the most positively wistful jobs of a bygone era, but strangely not "For a 13 year old today, what is the equivalent of dying inside a chimney?" because these jobs are they chimney kind, not the paper-boy kind.
At a certain point we have to say no one should be making less than this. As a society we likely want a floor on what human time is worth. If your business truly can’t function and that floor is reasonable which I believe it is in almost all states your business isn’t viable.