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(NewsNation) — Child labor violations are increasing, and over two dozen states have made moves that are exacerbating the issue, a recent report by Governing for Impact, the Economic Policy Institute and Child Labor Coalition says.
“Many assume that children working long hours in dangerous jobs is a thing of the distant past in the United States,” the report’s authors said. “Unfortunately, they’re wrong.”
Injury rates almost doubled among workers under 18 between 2011 and 2020, the report said.
The Fair Labor Standard Act, passed by Congress in 1938, authorized some restrictions on child labor. Still, the report says, in recent years there have been “noted increases” in child labor violations, workplace injuries and chronic absenteeism from school.
In FY 2023, the Department of Labor concluded 955 investigations and reported that it found a 14% increase in violations from the previous year. Nearly 5,800 children were working in ways that didn’t follow the laws, and the department assessed more than $8 million in penalties, an 83% increase from FY 2022.
Organizations, in their report, detailed the stories of a 16-year-old boy who was killed while deep cleaning a piece of machinery in the deboning area of a Mississippi chicken processing plant. Proper supervision and precautions failed him, the report said.
Another teen near Orlando, Florida, died at the construction site of a two-story house in 2019 when he fell from a height of 8 feet off a step ladder while holding a 24-foot flooring joist. The joist fell on the boy’s chest and killed him, the report said.
A number of factors can lead to youth getting hurt on the job, including which occupation they’re employed in, the report said. Agriculture is an industry where the risks to child workers are the highest and regulations are the weakest, for example, according to the report.
“Instead of addressing the troubling increase in workplace injuries among children, industry-aligned groups like those behind Project 2025 have actually proposed to change federal regulations to let more young people work in more dangerous jobs,” the report said.
Project 2025 is a nearly 1,000-page handbook from conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation, as well as other organizations, that serves as a guide for what they want done under a Republican presidential administration.
While Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has distanced himself from Project 2025, dozens of people who worked closely with him during his time in the White House are involved in it, a fact Democratic nominee Kamala Harris’ campaign has pointed out.
Authors of Project 2025 wrote that some young adults “show an interest in inherently dangerous jobs.”
“Current rules forbid many young people, even if their family is running the business, from working in such jobs. This results in worker shortages in dangerous fields and often discourages otherwise interested young workers from trying the more dangerous job,” Project 2025 authors said. “With parental consent and proper training, certain young adults should be allowed to learn and work in more dangerous occupations. This would give a green light to training programs and build skills in teenagers who may want to work in these fields.”
Along with those in the industry pushing for less child labor protections, legislators in more than 30 states have taken steps to weaken them since 2021, Governing for Impact, the Economic Policy Institute and Child Labor Coalition wrote in their report.
“Citing labor shortages and under pressure from industry groups, these states have taken steps to: allow children under 18 — often much younger — to work in dangerous occupations, limit employer liability when their child workers are injured, and let employers schedule children for overnight shifts,” the report said.
What can be done to prevent child labor violations?
Since 2021, the Department of Labor has “ramped up enforcement” of current federal regulations and given employers who have committed “some of the worst abuses” the maximum penalties, the report notes. However, “the regulations themselves are out of date and insufficient.” the report said.
“Even with full-throated enforcement of these regulations, it’s not enough to sort of protect kids from what’s going on now in the economy,” Reed Shaw, policy counsel at Governing for Impact and co-author of the report, told The Guardian.
Report authors had some suggestions for changes the department can make. These include expanding the list of occupations deemed too hazardous for workers under 18 years old; increasing protections for child workers in hazardous agricultural jobs; and issuing regulations prohibiting employers from scheduling certain child workers for overnight shifts, as well as requiring rest breaks and one-day off a week for others.
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Cassie Buchman
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