Jonathan Kronstadt is a freelance writer working in Washington DC.
OPINION: I am a lifelong reader of newspapers. We still get the printed edition of the Washington Post, mostly because, at my age, if I don’t go out and get the newspaper after starting the coffee how the hell am I supposed to know my day has begun?
These days, however, one must approach the Post with eyes narrowed to a slit lest you see the front page in its entirety, and the comprehensive awfulness of it sends you racing back to bed. Even a careless glance at a rarely visited section can ruin your day. Like this morning, when in the process of delicately removing the sports section – still the safest spot in the paper, though horrors have lurked in its pages all too regularly of late – the business section fell out, and before I could put it in the recycling where it belongs, I spied this headline: “The conservative campaign to rewrite child labour laws”.
Apparently, despite a 12-pack of national crises, from daily mass shootings to climate change to threats to fundamental rights from reproductive health to voting, 11 state legislatures decided – with help from one very effective lobbying firm – that putting more teenagers to work was an urgent priority. It’s amazing any of us have any hair left given the frequency of truly head-scratching ideas these “laboratories of democracy” are coming up with these days.
One problem is that, like many of the boneheaded bills sliding through state legislatures with conservative super-majorities – enough votes to override a governor’s veto – the argument for weakening child labour laws can sound almost reasonable. Struggling families benefit from the extra income, kids benefit from real-world work experience, the economy benefits from an eased labour shortage, and anyway, working keeps them off TikTok.
But look closer and the malevolent crazy comes into focus. In Wisconsin, a bill proposes dropping the minimum age to serve alcohol in bars and restaurants from 18 to 14. Gosh, can’t see any potential problems there, except maybe drunk patrons sexually harassing – or worse – 14-year-olds.
Parental rights are a favoured cause of MAGA-merica these days, especially when it comes to what kids are exposed to in school. But apparently, parental scrutiny isn’t needed in the teen workplace in states like Arkansas, where a bill passed ending the requirement for parent-approved work permits for kids as young as 14, who by law can work up to 48 hours a week.
The feigned arguments in favour of relaxing child labour laws form an appallingly lame smokescreen for the true impetus: good old American corporate greed. Some employers like teenage workers because they can pay them less and get them to do jobs – often in dangerous conditions – adults won’t do.
According to a report from the Economic Policy Institute, the number of minors “employed in violation of child labour laws and hazardous occupation orders” nearly quadrupled between 2015 and 2022. And the numbers are surely even worse in reality, as thousands of migrant children are released each year to poorly vetted sponsors who put them to work in factories making everything from cars to cereal.
The truly scary part is, since guns are now the leading cause of death among US children and adolescents, you could make an argument that kids are safer in a meat-packing plant or on an assembly line than they are in school or playing in their front yard. But that hardly makes enabling child labour a sane legislative solution.
I had my first job at 13 – a summer gig as a janitor in a semi-crappy motel in Miami Beach. It was my idea, but a typically naive 13-year-old idea, as the experience was predictably scary and unsettling.
Growing up in the US these days is arguably more complicated than it’s ever been, and one of the last things the coming-of-age generations need is the added pressure of an adult workplace. The expression is child’s play, not child’s work. We simply need to do better by them.