Child Labor is Bad, Actually

The "pro-life" right's war on children.

Photo by Jeriden Villegas on Unsplash

The United States of America, one of the freest and most prosperous nations in the history of the world, has a child labor problem. We also have a child poverty problem. We have a child hunger problem. We have a child death problem.

And the GOP, the self-styled American conservative pro-life and pro-family party, has not only made America a more dangerous place for children, but is actively working on making it more perilous still.

Take child labor. In theory, the US banned child labor decades ago, for reasons that should be obvious: Kids should be in school and having fun, not working nearly full-time for pay, and especially not working for pay in conditions that could injure them, kill them, or sicken them for life. America’s child labor laws aren’t blanket bans on minors working, which is why you see teenagers with jobs. But there are rules banning young kids from most work (more on that later), and regulating how much and when even teenagers can work.

Fast food franchises in particular, a Washington Post investigation has found, routinely flout those laws. From the Post:

The most common violation? Over-working 14- and 15-year-olds.

Fourteen and 15-year-olds are not little kids, but they are still children who deserve basic protections, like not being made to work late into the night or sacrifice their schoolwork for income. According to the Post’s reporting, there was a pattern to the reason teens were being over-worked: Fast-food franchises are facing the same labor shortage as everyone else, and many older workers have moved into better-paid roles; at the same time, teenagers in struggling families are expected to help contribute to rent, groceries, and other necessities when a parent or caregiver cannot make ends meet.

That last bit, of course, has driven child labor for as long as child labor has existed: When parents can’t make enough to survive, their kids have to pitch in. The question is: Why, in one of the richest countries on earth, are adults struggling so badly that they can’t provide the very basics for their families?

When kids work too many hours, they miss school, they can’t complete their homework, their grades suffer, and their chances of getting into college decline. Over-work is another way in which kids growing up in poor families are at a huge disadvantage: Work for pay means less time on schoolwork and fewer of the extracurriculars that help with college admissions; it means far less time for socializing and physical activity, contributing to the enormous physical activity gap and related health gap between poor kids and rich ones. It sets poor kids up for a less-upwardly-mobile, less healthy, potentially shorter life.

It’s also a problem concentrated in conservative “pro-life” states: The same places eager to force women to bear children are also keen to roll back laws that support parents and keep their children out of dangerous jobs.