Apr 21, 2023 3 min read

As a society, we’ve largely agreed that before adolescents reach legal adulthood they should mostly be devoting themselves to education and training and learning to be responsible citizens.

Sure, there’s nothing wrong with having a part-time or weekend job to earn some spending money, learn about the basics of a workplace or help support families. But it would be hard to find anyone so callous that they would relish the idea of teens not yet eligible to drive or vote toiling in full-time jobs, sometimes in hazardous conditions. That would seem to be something that went out of fashion a century ago, something that we only see in PBS history programs or read about in novels by Upton Sinclair or Charles Dickens.

But we shouldn’t be complacent about child labor. We shouldn’t assume that we’ve become so enlightened that it’s no longer a problem. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the unlawful of employment of children has increased by almost 70% in the past five years. In the last couple of weeks, the issue has received renewed attention thanks to a New York Times investigation about migrant children, some as young as 13, working in plants and factories and handling potentially harmful equipment or dealing with dangerous chemicals. In some cases, they are working the night shift and hardly in any condition to attend school during the day, if they attend at all. Because they, or family members, may be undocumented, or the children are sending money home to family, they are ripe for exploitation.

The findings of the New York Times may offer an extreme example, but the story was published just as some states are chipping away at their laws regulating child labor. It’s happening in both red states and blue states. In Arkansas, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders recently signed legislation doing away with a requirement that workers who are not yet 16 get a permit before they are employed. Minnesota lawmakers have considered repealing a rule that prohibits 16-and 17-year-olds from working in construction. Ohio legislators are considering allowing teenagers to work until 9 p.m year-round. In Nebraska, they are looking at paying teenagers a subminimum “training wage.”

These measures have the backing of many business organizations and lobbyists. They argue that such steps are necessary when so many positions are going unfilled. But while getting more employees on the payroll might be advantageous now, it’s detrimental in the long run. Our economy – and our society as a whole – is better served when teens are putting their focus on their education and building a foundation for their future, not on punching a clock day after day after day.

A horrible legacy of child labor is part of America’s past. We should work to make sure it doesn’t become part of our future.