Child labor remains a key state legislative issue in 2024

Child labor remains a top issue in 2024 state legislative sessions amid soaring violations and widespread abuse of child labor laws in multiple sectors of the economy.

Since 2021, 28 states have introduced bills to weaken child labor laws, and 12 states have enacted them. By contrast, 14 states have introduced bills to strengthen child labor protections already in 2024—up from 11 states in all of 2023—as more state lawmakers recognize the need to address increasing violations and threats to current state and federal standards.

From the 1800s onward, states have often led the way on child labor regulation. Today, many important policy tools for preventing exploitative forms of child labor — such as work permit requirements for young teens and hours standards for older teens — remain under state purview because the federal 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) has never been amended to include them.

Many recent proposals to weaken child labor standards appear designed to eliminate any state standard that exceeds the FLSA, or even create state standards lower than or in contradiction to federal standards. This is an intentional tactic to generate pressure for subsequently lowering federal standards, reflecting long-standing interests of some industry groups.

In January 2024 alone, eight states introduced or took new actions on bills to roll back child labor protections For example:

• Florida lawmakers are debating a bill (recently passed by the House) that would eliminate long-standing state guidelines on work hours for teens, allowing employers to schedule 16- and 17-year-olds for unlimited hours — including during the school year — and eliminate meal or rest breaks.
• Kentucky lawmakers introduced a bill to allow nonprofits to hire 12- and 13-year-olds (federal law prohibits most non-agricultural employment for children under 14), and a bill to prohibit the state’s Labor commissioner from setting standards on child labor that exceed minimum protections under the FLSA, effectively repealing state standards that require meal and rest breaks for minor workers and that limit work hours for 16- and 17-year-olds.
• Two other states — Indiana and New Jersey — have also introduced bills to extend the number of hours minors can be scheduled to work, either during the summer or year-round.
• Two states — Missouri and West Virginia — have introduced new bills to eliminate youth work permits, and a Georgia bill introduced in 2023 and recommitted in 2024 would also eliminate youth work permits and allow 14-year-olds to do landscaping work on the grounds of workplaces where they are otherwise prohibited from working like factories and mills.

(Economic Policy Institute)