Child Labor Problem Increasing in US: What Problems Do These Sad Childhoods Reveal?

June 12 is World Day Against Child Labour. In the United States, which claims to be a “beacon of human rights,” the issue of child labor exploitation has long been a dark reality. In recent years, the problem of illegal employment of children in the United States has been alarming, with a multitude of incidents emerging.

The Dark Reality of Child Labor in the United States

According to data released by the U.S. Department of Labor, in the 2022 fiscal year, 835 companies were investigated and punished for illegally employing children, with more than 3,800 children involved. The number of illegally employed child laborers increased by 69% compared to 2018. Among them, the number of children engaged in hazardous work increased by 26% from the previous year.

However, the cases of illegal employment of children that were investigated are only the tip of the iceberg of child labor exploitation in the United States. The Department of Labor data also show that in 2022, millions of young people were employed in industries such as agriculture, food service, retail, entertainment and construction.

The agricultural sector is one of the hardest-hit areas for child labor in the United States. According to data from the nonprofit organization Farmworker Justice, there are still between 500,000 to 800,000 child laborers working on farms in the United States. Farm work is physically hard and child laborers are often exposed to hazards caused by weather, pesticides and the use of farm equipment and machinery. The Washington Post reported that between 2003 and 2016, 452 children died from work-related injuries in the United States, with 237 child laborers dying in agricultural accidents.

In the United States, the dark chain of profiting from the exploitation of child labor is intensifying, with immigrant children from Central American countries greatly affected. In the 2022 fiscal year, a total of 130,000 unaccompanied immigrant children entered the U.S. shelter system, which is a historic high and double the number of five years ago. The New York Times revealed that immigrant child labor can be found in “hazardous jobs in every state and across industries” from meat processing plants to construction sites and slaughterhouses.

To this day, the United States remains the only country among the 193 United Nations member states that has not ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The prospects for tackling the problem of child labor exploitation remain bleak.

Employers exploit children to enrich themselves. There are several historic cartoons that expose the exploitation of child labor by employers.

In one, a skinny child laborer works 11 hours a day, funneling the profits into a greedy employer’s mouth as he grows fat. In another, the children who are forced to work think about the childhood they’ve lost, while the employer thinks about the huge economic benefits, luxury cars and mansions that come to him by exploiting cheap labor.

Behind the Tears of Childhood: Capital, Greed and Legal Failings

Some have said that the growing trend of child labor in the United States has become a “systemic problem” within American society. It exposes a series of profit calculations and legal loopholes.

According to recent reports in the U.S. media, several U.S. states have either passed or are considering relaxing legal restrictions related to child labor. Some media outlets believe that various state legislatures have hit on this idea independently of each other because of surging employment costs and labor shortages following the COVID-19 pandemic. States are racing to relax child labor laws in an attempt to legalize exploitation.

U.S. media investigations have found that most child laborers in the United States today are immigrant children from Central America. New legislation passed in Arkansas, for example, removed the requirement for children to obtain parental permission to work, blatantly creating a loophole for companies to hire immigrant children who are separated from their families and absolving child labor intermediaries of legal responsibility.

Pastor Joel David Tuchez is an informed observer: “If you make a mistake at work, you will be treated like an adult and held accountable, but these children are not mature enough to handle that kind of emotional stress.”* Robert Reich, independent media commentator [and former Secretary of Labor] states, “Why on Earth is it happening [mass hiring of child labor]? The answer is frighteningly simple: greed. Employers have been having difficulty finding the workers they need at the wages they are willing to pay. Rather than reduce their profits by paying adult workers more, employers are exploiting children.”

The persistent problem of child labor abuse stems from clear loopholes in the U.S. legal system. U.S. federal law prohibits hazardous work for minors under the age of 18. However, the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 states that minors ages 14 and above can be employed in non-hazardous industries. In the current wave of changes to child labor laws in various states, some states are even allowing 14-year-old children to work six-hour night shifts and 15-year-old children to work on assembly lines. Previously, this wasn’t allowed.

Under current U.S. law, the maximum civil penalty for illegally employing a child laborer is only $15,000. Amazingly, if a child worker is seriously injured or killed on the job, the maximum fine is less than $69,000.

Wendy Young, president of Kids in Need of Defense, highlights this: “I think it is crucial to control illegal child labor by increasing fines and investigating illegal child labor as a potential criminal case.”*

*Editor’s Note: This quote, though accurately translated, could not be verified.