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Some states have been loosening the rules around how much teens should be allowed to work on the job. And the Republican-led Florida legislature is debating questions like whether 14-year-olds can have jobs or how late bosses can ask 16-year-olds to work on school nights. In Tallahassee, WFSU's Tristan Wood reports.
TRISTAN WOOD, BYLINE: One proposal would allow 16-year-olds to work more than the current 30-hour-a-week cap, including longer days and later hours, even on school nights. Another would loosen some limits on 14-year-olds working if they're in homeschool, virtual education or already graduated. One of the bills is sponsored by Tampa Republican state senator Jay Collins. He says it is about parental rights and giving children more access to jobs.
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JAY COLLINS: I believe that parents are best suited to take care of their kids and manage their schedules and make sure that they're doing what's best for them. I don't understand why the state needs to go beyond the federal regulations in this case.
WOOD: Federal laws are weaker, but Florida already loosened some child labor laws last year, and the state isn't alone. Nina Mast is a policy and economic analyst at the Washington-based Economic Policy Institute, which seeks to improve wages for working people. She says dozens of states have considered similar bills and several passed some last year.
NINA MAST: What we are seeing, especially coming out of the pandemic, is really just a push that is led by the business industry and some right-wing think tanks to be able to make it easier to hire young people at lower wages for longer hours and in more hazardous jobs under the guise of wanting to address a so-called labor shortage.
WOOD: Mast says the changes are intended to drive down wages that went up in lower-paying industries during the pandemic, meaning jobs like servers in restaurants and delivery drivers.
MAST: This is really a concerted, nationwide effort to essentially create a permanent underclass of disempowered, low-wage workers.
WOOD: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis seemed to back the general idea of more minors in the labor force, speaking recently at an immigration panel that included U.S. immigration czar Tom Homan.
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RON DESANTIS: What's wrong with expecting our young people to be working part-time now? I mean, like, that's how it used to be when I was growing up.
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DESANTIS: Why do we say we need to import foreigners, even import them illegally, when teenagers used to work at these resorts?
WOOD: He didn't mention child labor laws, but his comments were seized on by Democratic lawmakers who said child labor shouldn't be used to enable an immigration crackdown. John Fliter, a political science professor at Kansas State University, who's written a book on child labor laws, agrees.
JOHN FLITER: Studies show that when kids start working, you know, these hours, they do not do well in school. Some of them drop out, you know? And if you don't have a high school degree, a diploma, you're not really going to be successful financially for the rest of your life.
WOOD: But state senator Collins defends his legislation, saying teens working jobs provides other skills they can't get in school.
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COLLINS: We want our kids to be academically prepared, but let's talk about soft skills. Let's talk about adult function. Let's talk about executive thought process and management. Where do they learn that? Do we teach them that in school? I think if you go look at what's going on, we really don't. We don't prepare them for executive function. We don't even have home ec and things like that.
WOOD: It's unclear what will pass Florida's legislature. The Senate president and House speaker both say they are unsure about further reducing child labor protections. But in a committee meeting this week, lawmakers raised the idea of loosening rules for 13-year-olds to work in the summer. For NPR 瓜神app, I'm Tristan Wood in Tallahassee, Florida. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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