New, Conservative Push To Weaken Child Labor Protections Is Gaining Steam
New, Conservative Push To Weaken Child Labor Protections Is Gaining Steam
This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news...
A movement to weaken American child labor protections at the state level began in 2022. By June 2023, Arkansas, Iowa, New Jersey and New Hampshire had enacted this kind of legislation, and lawmakers in at least another eight states had introduced similar measures.
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Instead of paying adults actual decent wages, pay children less for the same work! What could go wrong?
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They read Upton Sinclair and decided it was a How To manual, not a warning.
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We shouldn’t be shocked when the education levels of these states (literacy, math, writing, etc) starts to decrease in the near future. It’s not like these politicians, companies, people care sadly, but with the less time teenagers are going to have for studies, extracurricular, and usual teenage things, we can definitely expect to see even further decrease in grades and proficiency levels.
Grades are one thing, but the mental toll and stress a lot teenagers face due to not being have to have an effective school/work/life balance is insane. I have seen a further decrease on these students mental health since the pandemic started (especially now with inflation impact lower SES families) since alot of them have to work to provide for the family as well.
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really borrowing from China's playbook to increase population and "bring industry back to the US," are we?
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A less educated electorate is a more conservative one, so its very much in their political interest to de-incentivize education.
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Party of family value, folks.
Those kids are worth at least 12.50/hour
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Why pay them $12.50 when you can pay $7.25?
Why pay $7.25 if you can pay less?
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shhh.... don't tell the parents that.... Get them hooked with the idea of extra income they can loot first.
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Family values to these people is the right for a man to own a woman and for them both to own indentured servants. It makes exploitation sting less if you can be the "king of the castle" at home.
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They want more people in the work force. I've been working since I was 16. They just want to squeeze as much labor out of us as they can. Lower the age to 12 and that's 4 more years. Raise the retirement age couple of years, and put people in a position where they can't really retire (hence getting rid of student loan debt forgiveness). Hell, a lot of people already can't retire. We're born, basically have about 4 years off, then it's school, maybe college. Most people are already in the work force in some capacity by high school. And that's basically it. Work til we die. That's our life lol. Oh, except for the ultra rich. They don't have to do shit.
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I honestly wonder why we expect ourselves to work so much. Spoiler: rich people work significantly less.
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It’s because the system is designed in such a way in the US that it conditions us to think like that. The US modern school system is literally based off working in factories, so it’s no surprise that we’ve been conditioned that we need to work to work so much because we’ve been raised in an environment that mimics a work environment for around 14+ years of our lives. It’s kinda fucked up.
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So if these kids can work, they can vote, right?
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Another core Republican policy is increasing the minimum voting age to 25.
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Something about Taxation without Representation…
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America really if in a race to the bottom. I'm afraid to see how low they can go.
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I’m not surprised at three of the four states, but New Jersey? WTH.
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I wasn't expecting New Hampshire either. Honestly surprised it's not any of the deep south states.
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Florida will probably be next, what with how they are deliberately driving migrants out of the state despite relying heavily on them.
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New Hampshire is becoming full of Trump worshippers unfortunately, outside of the heavily populated areas
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New Hampshire has always had a libertarian streak, so they sometimes push rightwards on economic issues.
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Child labour is a crime against humanity. To get to the root of a crime, ask yourself 'Cui bono?' (who benefits?) and you'll know who the criminals are.
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Cons are just comically evil
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I have nothing to say other than wtf.
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It's also been a primary goal of Betsy DeVos for years: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/betsy-devos-child-labor-acton_n_5836eb7fe4b000af95edf12e
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The USA is going speedrun mode straight to the shitter, the people need to wake the fuck up and put worthy people in power, whatever it takes. If this conservative trend doesn't end (worldwide not just in the US) then this will end very badly for us, our kids, and their kids too. Things are looking more and more like the early industrial era and less like what people were hoping the world would be like during the 2000s...
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They cared about the kids when it was abortion, gay or trans issues only.