Lawmakers in several states are introducing bills to get rid of certain regulations for children to enter industries such as meatpacking and construction.Opponents of the proposals have been quick to use imagery from the 1920s and 1930s, with pictures of small children covered in soot from a mine or working with dangerous machinery — the kinds of images that prompted the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration to pursue the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act, which heavily regulated child labor.
There are currently over 9.5 million job openings in the U.S., according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and millions of workers have not returned to jobs since before the pandemic. "You just simply have the government getting out of the way of 14- to 15-year-olds who want to work, they don't need to run to the state to get permission," Consumers' Research Executive Director Will Hild told the Washington Examiner."They want to get a job, their parents want them to have a job, and so be it."
Democrats expressed concern over the alcohol provision in particular, with state Rep. Megan Srinivas saying,"it is pretty easy to be sexually assaulted as a woman in the service industry bringing drinks to people who’ve been drinking for hours."