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Instead of paying adults more, states let companies hire kids for labor shortage
- whitemary 4y agoCapitalism is as capitalism does.
- VirusNewbie 4y ago[flagged]
- theknocker 4y ago[dead]
- cscurmudgeon 4y agoWait, but this isn’t True Capitalism just like there is no True Communism in the world.
- MomoXenosaga 4y agoIf America practised capitalism they would accept the free labour market and start paying people more. Businesses that can't survive paying the market rate to compete for labour should go out of business.
- Nextgrid 4y agoThis development isn't really against the free market - this will temporarily solve the labor shortage by flooding the market with a lot of supply, but it's very much temporary and it's only a matter of time before wages for teenagers reach some equilibrium.
- manicennui 4y agoYeah, everything was great during the Industrial Revolution when there were few labor laws.
- whitemary 4y agoHuh? The US hardly has any labor laws, and nearly all of them were passed over 100 years ago.
- pchristensen 4y agoNot to mention a freer housing market!
- luckylion 4y agoAre you really here exclusively to tell everyone how terrible capitalism and how great communism is? It's the most boring commentary I can imagine.
- wheelerof4te 4y agoYou just can't say that here, it's mean! And it makes the Reds look better than they should!
- falcolas 4y agoI can I get off this train to distopia? Seriously. Didn't we already go through this child labor bit not even a century ago? I don't have kids and I still don't think that they're the solution to labor shortage. And what we do to them now will have serious repercussions when they become voting adults. EDIT: Removed unnecessary rant.
- 5350-uiop-1130 4y ago> "The results indicate that higher wages along with additional non-wage benefits would have expanded the labor supply," the study said. > But for now, Republican legislators are starting to turn to teenagers. executives & shareholders: "we would rather hire kids than pay a living wage to adults"
- brookst 4y agoIt’s a win-win; it might also reduce the kids’ propensity to waste time on edu stool, thus improving the pipeline of cheap labor and voters who don’t see anything wrong with being a perpetual underclass.
- SoftTalker 4y agoWhat’s wrong with giving teens work experience doing low value jobs?
- slater 4y agoWhat's wrong with paying adults a livable wage?
- ghaff 4y agoNothing wrong with it--whatever that term has come to mean exactly. But, as many SV companies have found out over the years as VC subsidies have dried up, there are a ton of services people want but only so much money most people will pay for them. Pick up and drop off laundry? Sign me up! For $50? Umm. Maybe I'll pass. Of course you see this effect where middle class people in developing countries have far more full-time help than all but the wealthiest do in the US and Western Europe. I suspect that in the coming years, we'll see far more self-service, automation, and some services that are pretty commonplace today becoming much more of a luxury.
- walkhour 4y agoIf the value of their production exceeds the living wage, nothing. If it doesn't, there's nothing the company can do but pay less than the living wage or fire the employee.
- pg_bot 4y agoMy first job was when I was 14, working the express lane for a grocery store after school. The job was easy and I wanted money, what's wrong with that?
- lmaoge 4y ago[dead]
- maxbond 4y agoNothing, young people should be able to earn and build experience for their own enrichment, but it's not a solution for a labor shortage.
- MomoXenosaga 4y agoThis is not about summer jobs stocking Walmart shelves. They want to put them into construction and meat packing plants.
- reb 4y agoMaking children and adults compete in the labor market so business owners can protect their profit margins doesn’t seem off to you? I wouldn’t want to subsidize some company’s low wages by lending them my kid at a discount rate, but that’s just me.
- Nextgrid 4y agoCompeting in the labor market so that 1% can become super rich is what most of us do to survive. You could argue that's not moral and I agree, but that doesn't change because of an arbitrary age limit. Either we accept the idea that it's moral that someone needs to effectively be a slave to the system to enjoy basic rights such as a roof, food and medical care, or we don't. Age shouldn't play a role in this.
- reb 4y agoThe idea that our two choices are “abandon capitalism” or “allow children to be devoured by it” is… unhinged.
- lmaoge 4y agohow does paying adults more necessarily stop labor shortage
- csdvrx 4y agoThe negative takes bashing capitalism are weird. First, because keys loves summer jobs and pocket money! Also, it can be fun: I fondly remember my first job! It felt nice to start feeling useful and do valuable things instead of just netflix and games. I only wish I could have started earlier, as it also gave me the opportunity to learn many interesting things and increase my skillset. You may want more money, but if you are an adult and already have a job, maybe think about the kids who'd love to get A job and ANY money at all!
- uejfiweun 4y ago[flagged]
- slater 4y ago"Please don't post comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. It's a semi-noob illusion, as old as the hills." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- uejfiweun 4y agoHeh, I guess I am turning into the very low-quality poster I am trying to stop. Thanks for the rules link.
- falcolas 4y agoExcept, this isn't about paying kids. It's about working around paying adults living wages (so they can, you know, go home and spend time with their kids instead of going to a second or third job). And it's also about increasing corporate profits by not paying adults living wages.
- OrvalWintermute 4y agoI don't think adults are truly competing with teenagers for these gigs. The main industry mentioned is meatpacking, which is an industry rife with the exploitation of undocumented labor to pay substandard rates already https://www.ocala.com/story/news/2008/11/06/large-iowa-meatpacker-in-illegal-immigrant-raid-files-for-bankruptcy/31263519007/ https://www.ocala.com/story/news/2008/11/06/large-iowa-meatp...
- londons_explore 4y agoI think we need to cover the housework-loophole. You can tell a 10 year old to clean the house, weed the garden or wash the dishes. But tell a 10 year old to help dad at work and suddenly it's illegal. If getting children to work is bad, then housework should be treated the same as any other work.
- tibbetts 4y agoI don’t think we need to solve non-problems in the interest of foolish consistency.
- brookst 4y ago[flagged]
- kingkawn 4y agoKeeping home with your family is very different than exchanging labor for money on the market. Pretending otherwise to make a precious point is absurd. You know it.
- Nextgrid 4y agoExchanging labor for money on the market would also allow people in abusive households to escape. It works both ways.
- falcolas 4y ago> Exchanging labor for money on the market would also allow people in abusive households to escape. Not really. Not until they're of an age where they can legally separate from their abusers (at which point they can usually work independently). Until then, they'd just be another source of income to the abuser with few independent legal rights.
- lostlogin 4y agoDoing the dishes isn’t really the same as working in a slaughterhouse. Do you feel the same about both of those jobs?
- agilob 4y agoThis is what I do in Frostpunk. A game in an apocalyptic world where everything is frozen and I have a labour shortage to gather mine and wood. And this is what's on top of frostpunk subreddit https://old.reddit.com/r/Frostpunk/comments/11pc423/the_first_thing_that_came_to_mind_when_i_saw_this/ https://old.reddit.com/r/Frostpunk/comments/11pc423/the_firs...
- voytec 4y agoI started working willingly at 15, setting up networks and routers in then-booming internet cafés. It were part-time jobs, of course. At 17 I managed to get a government contract to set up a firewall at a military facility. I don't see anything wrong with underage labor if it is not forced and doesn't disrupt social life or school. I see more harm to kids from "social" networks.
- matsemann 4y agoIt will be "forced", in the way that you can no longer support your family doing some jobs, so your kids have to work as well to avoid starving. The point here isn't to let children work, it's to have children work to avoid paying adult workers more.
- vore 4y agoThere is something definitely wrong if the goal is to depress wages for adults working the same jobs doing the same thing.
- ssnistfajen 4y agoCan you read the article first? There's a big difference between IT jobs and working in meatpacking or construction.
- voytec 4y agoWill the new law only allow underage workers to get meatpacking or construction jobs? If not, I find your comment pointless. Some adults work in meatpacking or construction and other adults in IT.
- warent 4y agoThese children would be working alongside adults in hazardous industries. Some adults have sex with people twice their age and others don't. Using your logic, we can now legalize child sex exploitation
- ssnistfajen 4y ago
- maxk42 4y agoThese lawmakers are apparently proposing to reduce the age of labor to 14. That's exactly how old I was when I began working in CA. If anything I'm wondering why 14-year-olds can't work in those states already.
- falcolas 4y ago> I'm wondering why 14-year-olds can't work in those states already. They can in a vast majority of cases, there are just more restrictions to ensure they aren't being exploited by businesses (hours, inherent danger of the jobs, acknowledging that a 14 year old is still a bloody child, etc). Those restrictions are being removed.
- wheelerof4te 4y agoSo many of you are missing the point. Children should not have full-time jobs, nor should they compete with the adults in the job market. Period.
- andreygrehov 4y ago> Children should not have full-time jobs, nor should they compete with the adults in the job market. Not that I disagree, but why?
- wheelerof4te 4y agoBecause they're still children and they need the education first. Because child labor in most cases amounts to slavery. Why should any child spend 8 hours of their life daily slaving away instead of learning and playing with their peers
- tasuki 4y ago> Because child labor in most cases amounts to slavery. Yes, that is bad. But, what else do you propose? Everyone is against child labour, but many kids in the 3rd world don't have better alternatives: if they don't work, they starve. Is that better than child labour? [I understand the article and most of the discussion is about the US, of course the US is a rich country and could easily take care of the kids without slave labour]
- machina_ex_deus 4y agoFrom being able to support a family with only the husband salary, to supporting it with two full time salaries, to barely supporting it even with two full time salaries, all the way back to child labor. The transformation back into feudalism is nearly complete. Hope you're happy with the freedom to develop your slave career. Don't forget career is the most important part of your life, don't forget to pay your 50% taxes so that we can give them as social support to people who compete with you on pricing, as we artificially choke supply with regulations so that god forbid your work will lose its leverage over your life.
- gambiting 4y agoI think we're about 5 years away, maybe less, until company towns come back, as a "new and modern" solution to living costs crisis, you just have to sign a contract saying you will never leave the town unless you pay the debts to the company(and somehow your rent, groceries and medical bills are tiny bit more than what you are paid a month)
- botro 4y agoNot quite 5 years: https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/elon-musk-plans-to-build-his-own-texas-town https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/elon-musk-plans-to...
- Ekaros 4y agoI already saw some documentary about gentrification. And how the restaurateur were building houses to house her workers. Charging pretty obscene rent and somehow telling nothing was wrong there... That isn't too far away from true exploitation.
- MonkeyMalarky 4y agoHeck, there's this case where the workers aren't even citizens. Just cheap labor imported en mass to work in the service/hospitality industry: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/pei-souris-tim-hortons-evictions-housing-1.6752938 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/pei-sour...
- shagymoe 4y agoIt's really depressing how we totally fail to permanently learn our lessons. We're just doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past because there are so many uneducated (and "educated") people who suck the propaganda tit all day every day. It's so bizarre that people will campaign for and champion the rollback of regulations that negatively affect them directly. For what? To feel like your political "team" won? There are REASONS why children have been taken out of the workforce. There are REASONS why food, water, work safety, etc should be protected with regulations. It turns out the majority of people are just incapable of empathy or logic. So depressing.
- DiggyJohnson 4y ago> It turns out the majority of people are just incapable of empathy or logic. This is an extremely solipsistic take if you actually believe it.
- shagymoe 4y agoI'm sure that other people's minds exist. I don't have overwhelming evidence that they are capable of empathy or logic. How do _you_ explain poor, rural people fighting for the benefit of billionaires? IMHO, it defies logic. How do _you_ explain people campaigning against the civil rights of people whose personal choices have zero effect on the lives of those campaigning against them or negatively affect literally anyone in the world? IMHO, it shows a complete lack of empathy.
- supergauntlet 4y agoPropaganda is really really effective and works really really well. Even on educated people.
- anigbrowl 4y agoBut these economic changes aren't being propounded by a majority of the people. They're coming from people who currently have an electoral majority, which is not at all the same thing. The latter can be engineered by tailoring the borders of voting districts. Go read The Dictator's Handbook by Bruce Bueno de Mesquite and Alastair Smith, which explains how it's practical to rule a polity with a curated selection of supporters.
- dmbche 4y agoTo everyone talking about how they worked as a kid, the bill talks about industries with labor shortages, such as meat-packing and construction. These are very difficult jobs and are also quite dangerous, it's not like being a store clerk. Working in a meat packing plant can bear a toll on your mental well being. As a child, you can't be well aware of what you're getting into, and these industries can be predatory to their employees (big surprise as to why they are understaffed), by not respecting labor laws or pushing the limits of them. Want your kids to work forced overtime attaching dead chickens to hooks in a fridge? I don't think it's as beneficial as working as a clerk. I wouldn't even be comfortable with kids working in kitchens, since these industries are predatory as well!
- lr4444lr 4y agoYour point is taken, but we have to consider the opportunity cost. For kids not academically focused nor have even with the temperament for vocational ed., who may be getting into trouble at school or flirting with drugs, a steady job even if it's a little rough could be a lifeline. Working in meat processing is extreme, but I don't think it is anywhere near kitchen labor. We can certainly pair these work exemptions with stronger workplace safety oversight, to your point.
- swatcoder 4y agoSounds like a great opportunity for an apprenticing program for trade work, not child labor.
- carlosjobim 4y agoCrime and drug dealing is a better career opportunity for young people than low-wage jobs.
- germinalphrase 4y agoOpportunity cost? We’re talking about 13-14 years olds sanitizing meat packing facilities on the overnight shift as was recently exposed up here in Minnesota.
- warent 4y ago
- newaccount2023 4y ago[flagged]
- radus 4y agoDid you work in the meat packing department of Wendy’s? Your experience may hav e been a tad different..
- madamelic 4y agoAs someone who also worked fast food the second I could and not because I had to, they had very explicit rules about what I could and couldn't do. I wasn't allowed to even step foot into the kitchen area because it had knives but most importantly, two large spinning blades to shred meat and hot stoves. The problem isn't children working, the problem is allowing children to risk their body when they might not understand or appreciate the risk they are in with those machines.
- MinorTom 4y agomeat packing =/= burger frying
- SuperShibe 4y agoWorking at Wendy's at least has some worth on your resume (e.g. learning about customer interaction). Working on construction/in meat factories won't have any of the same worth while being (severely) physically dangerous/damaging for kids.
- UncleOxidant 4y agoI don't see a lot of high school students (you can work at 16 with a work permit) working as it is. What makes them think they'll find a lot of kids under 16 who will want to work? On the otherhand, yesterday I filled up the car and the attendant who put the gas in (I live in Oregon, no self-serve) must have been about 80 years old. Pretty sure she was not well either based on the raspyness of her voice.
- louwrentius 4y agoWhat I find shocking is that with this few comments there are already HN bros justifying or downplaying the significance of what is happening. Or they are deliberately misunderstanding (I did work at 15) what is really happening. The reality is that in some places democracy has died, politicians are now bought by corporations, who now run those states. It makes me so angry how we are backsliding, losing our rights that have been paid for in blood. At this point I just can’t believe people still want to subject children to this world.
- jwie 4y agoAh yes it’s a “labor shortage” not high labor demand and wages of course.
- jccalhoun 4y agoExactly. These articles talking about "labor shortage" are buying into the newspeak of the corporations. It is a pay shortage not a labor shortage. Pay more and you will have more people willing to take the jobs.
- autophagian 4y agoThis makes a lot of economic sense, despite the howling from the socialist mob. 14 year olds' natural agility and nimbleness are assets in meat packing and construction, where they are able to retrieve stray pieces of meat or lost tools that have fallen in or between the large machinery.
- theFletch 4y agoCall me crazy, but I don't think child labor is the solution.
- MonkeyMalarky 4y agoAw come on, those little hands are just perfect for getting into and cleaning all the nooks and crannies of industrial equipment.
- hotpotamus 4y agoIf this isn't a reference to "Snowpiercer", then you should really give it a watch. The movie I mean; I haven't seen the TV series.
- steele 4y agoThis policy is to suppress wages and legitimize migrant child labor at and after detention.
- Ekaros 4y agoWhy is solution to get more workers. And not solve the root issue. Cost of living. If we could drive down the cost of living in entire west the labour would short much of itself out. Housing and food should be cheap with our level of automation. Where have we gone wrong with all this?
- pixl97 4y ago1) Because cost of living is hard to solve 2) The investor class isn't allow to steal all the profits and live like modern kings.
- timwaagh 4y agoPaying adults more does not really cover a labour shortage, it just ensures the ones that can't afford to do that go bankrupt or relocate so it's a false equivalence. Whether this is the right solution people will have to figure out for themselves. Personally I'm not against it. For a lot of people school can be pretty pointless.
- hinata08 4y agoPaying adults more forces companies to focus on value, and to work that contributes to the economy. By travelling around, I was surprised by the non-sense and the lack of efficiency of the economy in some countries. In some places that are 'developing', citizens were working as hard of harder than in wealthy places. But most of them were in non-productive jobs, like security agents to just guard a few houses, tricycle driver (when ppl could just walk), train platform monitor (in the Philippines, I was annoyed because there was someone at every platform, like a lifeguard in a swimming pool, but to make sure you weren't stepping to close to the edge),... Often, workers are even trapped in cheap labour ! Western companies outsource in some places just because it's cheaper, and hire nothing but unqualified workers as long as they accept low wages. These branches would never hire qualified workers or uni graduates, because they're just there for the low wages. So we need to increase the salaries, and make sure children have access to education and better jobs. Also, "it just ensures the ones that can't afford to do that go bankrupt" is just basic capitalism and market economy. They been pushing that on us for decades. According to the media, it was the only alternative, and the key to a better world. Why would that be different, when the market conditions impose a better wage ? Why are the republicans suddenly moving the goalposts ? Do they mean they were wrong ?
- carlosjobim 4y ago> ones that can't afford to do that go bankrupt As they should. If you can't pay for the labour you don't have a business.
- giantg2 4y agoFYI, you might want to check out the study. It seems a little suspect in some ways. For example, it took place in 2020 and doesn't necessarily represent the same environment today, mainly due to the larger tax credit and stimulus during that time. It also seemed like the people surveyed were people who already had jobs paying the same or more than the average meat packer. No shit they don't want a job thar pays less. This shouldn't be about nabbing employees from other jobs but increasing labor force participation. Higher wages could help with this but I imagine there are other factors to look at too.
- nobodyandproud 4y agoA real race to the bottom. The superior outcome is to break apart the large slaughterhouses and businesses, and allow smaller family owned farms and coops to redevelop and thrive.
- pixl97 4y agoI'm from the midwest and the large groups like IBP are some of the worst labor abusers we have in the US. For the longest time they depended on both the labor of illegal aliens and the mentally handicapped[1]. To expound on this, something I didn't realize as a kid living up there, is large amounts of the disabled where shipped to Iowa from other states like Texas. These disabled people would then be exploited for pay around a dollar a day at meat packing plants. At least in the midwest two major things are pushing for more exploitive childhood labor... First, much better treatment of the handicapped and access to abortions where defects are detectable in the womb. and Secondly, the entire Trump administrations 'build a bigger wall' had dramatically dropped border crossings at least up until the year 2019. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/03/09/us/the-boys-in-the-bunkhouse.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/03/09/us/the-boys-i...
- JoshTko 4y agoWe've peaked if we need to reverse child labor laws.
- chasing 4y agoThese kids have been mooching off of adults for way to long.
- anigbrowl 4y agoThese legislatures in this states also don't want to lobby the federal government for a relaxation of hyper-strict immigration rules that ld increase the available labor pool. So (according to them) we're simultaneously full and experiencing an invasion of foreign workers, but also have so few people to fill jobs that we need to let teenagers work in metapacking.
- Mizoguchi 4y ago[flagged]
- throwaway426079 4y agoBoth your examples are working in business your family owned. Do you really imagine these positive experiences will hold true for kids employed by companies they have no connections with?
- pixl97 4y agoYea, a lot of people don't realize when they are speaking that oligarchs and robber barons commonly raise their family members up in the business and the kids are also wealthy. It has absolutely zero reflection on the average person in the company, especially as you get toward the bottom of the pay scale. Also the entire 'family farm' thing is a trope of a bygone era. Technically my family owns a family farm. Almost everything they do is contracted out by massive agribusiness, not many are independants. The number of small family farms has evaporated and most are what we would consider mid to large size businesses via consolidation.
- danpalmer 4y agoI understand that the experience of you and your family was broadly positive, and that's great, but it's a very privileged position and experience. Delivery driving and hotel service jobs are in particular much safer and probably better for mental health for most than jobs like meat packing as is being suggested. Additionally, by you and your family experiencing this in the regulated child labour market, you likely benefitted from higher wages than would be typical once these regulations are rolled back.
- silveira 4y ago> document.title "Republicans in Some States Want to Ease Child Labor Laws to Fill Jobs"
- FrontierPsych 4y agoSoon to come in those states - children coal miners: https://imgur.com/nOP8jVV https://imgur.com/nOP8jVV https://imgur.com/RgLPM3v https://imgur.com/RgLPM3v Of course, even today there are child workers - in 3rd world countries. https://imgur.com/v5UsSaQ https://imgur.com/v5UsSaQ Glad to see we are becoming a...3rd world country???
- walkhour 4y agoTo the people concerned about kids depressing the wages of adults, are you also concerned about low wage immigration? Is immigration also capitalism showing its evil hand and do you oppose it because it negatively affects workers? (btw this was Bernie Sanders position until two minutes ago when his views "evolved" and aligned with the rest of the party)
- FrontierPsych 4y agoI've worked with the construction and trades industry for a long time - not as an employee, but as a vendor. I've talked to thousands of business owners. Most times at great length about their business and the industry. The most common complaint for decades is a lack of employees. Nothing new here. But a lot of it is that the smaller companies don't have a concerted effort to attract talent. This is because most of the trades - plumbing, electricians, etc, are small companies of 2-10 employees. They are not advertising every week for new employees and keeping their resumes on hand for when someone quits their company. The larger companies, while still having problems recruiting, are able to keep their companies at 100 or 200 plumbers or electricans. Maybe the large companies are not growing as fast as they can, but they still have a lot of workers. Most of the construction companies don't need to look for work at all. Because of the extreme shortage of employees, they all have way more work than they can do. Child labor would put a dent in what construction companies need. Construction companies can't find 18-22 year olds to do the jobs. Why would a child do it? And not many parents would allow it, not even low-income households. Construction is dangerous as fuck. Also, it is EXTREMELY physically demanding. So many people walk off the job after the very first day and just say "fuck it," just because of the physical demands - not even talking about accidents or safety. It's like being at the gym all day, working out for 8 hours straight, every day. Some construction workers must eat 8,000 calories per day to deal with the calorie burn. So you are eating 400% more food and you pay for that extra food, or your parents do. You can see the danger of construction by looking at workers comp insurance rates for different industries. The workers comp rates are based on your payroll. Companies pay $x per $100 of payroll. So for instance, the average workers comp rate across all industries is $2.25 per $100 of payroll. So if your company's monthly payroll is $100,000 per month, then your workers comp payments will be $2,250 per month. But it changes by job. So since office work is very little chance of injury, it costs 28 to 99 cents per $100 of payroll. Very inexpensive. An doctors office cotss $1.22 to $3.68 - maybe because a greater chance of getting a disease or moving an overweight patient or whatever - more risk than sitting at a desk, right? A garbage industry worker costs $6.19 to $23.63. Tree trimming and masonry is $12-$43. Carpentry is $15-$50. Roofing is one of the most expensive at $23-$87. The more you have to pay in workers comp, the more dangerous the occupation is. Roofing is one of the highest, because people fall off roofs, off ladders, they carry heavy shingles and hurt their backs. So roofing companies are going to have to pay a lot more than office jobs. FYI it goes by worker - an office admin person working in a roofing company still gets office worker comp rate. But construction is extremely unsafe which you can see just by looking at workers comp costs. One other thing that affects the cost of workers comp insurance is how many claims a company has. Just like auto insurance, the more accidents and traffic tickets you have, the more you will pay, until it is devastatingly high. It's the exact same with workers comp. If a company has a lot of workplace accidents, their rate skyrockets, sometimes until the company must go out of business. The reason for the rate increase is because the company has lax safety procedures, on the whole, right? Makes sense. Well, if you have 14-17 year olds, you're going to have a LOT more accidents because kids that age don't know what they are doing. And you put them in dangerous situations. Think of it this way - if you are a homeowner, would you hire your next door neighbor's kid to help you with re-shingling your roof, or any other dangerous or mildly dangerous type of work??? Hell no. Why should we allow a company to do that? And even if you hire the neighbor kid to mow your lawn, that is vastly different than hiring a kid to commercially mow lawns for a business. No way should anyone under 18-years-old be allowe to work in dangerous industries. Mandate that by federal law. If you want to get training for young workers, you can have them go out with estimators or foremen or do office work to understand and train them in the business. But no actual physical work as the tradesman.
- hinata08 4y agoWhat about sending kids to college to become industrial or IT engineers ? They could automate or improve efficiency in areas where cheap manual labour isn't necessary ! They could also do research, to keep America at the leading edge of the industry ! Oh wait, it means planning for the future economy. And it means universities, mostly operated by governments. This all sounds socialist, hence is bad. It also means that children from the minorities will have a future where they're paid better than you, it's inconceivable. And anyone won't just be able to hire a poor child to profit from is work, so it's bad for the short term economy. Am I right or wrong, on why republicans want that law ?
- SuperShibe 4y ago>keep America at the leading edge of the industry That was never the plan. Turns out you can enjoy a pretty excessive lifestyle on the cost of exploiting your population. If you can keep them at bay physically (overtime) and financially (living wage) you might as well keep doing this forever. What are they gonna do? Protest during the 8 free hours they got a day? Run for any significant political position with the 2 dollars left from their living wage? Of course children from minorities could have a future but why care about that when you're well off? What if approaching neo-feudalism was the goal, not a side effect?
- lobstersammich 4y agoIn this post I've read A LOT of incorrect population decline estimates. Here is a paper from The Lancet - not retracted, that I know of - that charts the populations of the present day through 2100 for almost all countries in the world: "Fertility, mortality, migration, and population scenarios for 195 countries and territories from 2017 to 2100: a forecasting analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study" https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673620306772 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S014067362... Click on the large 'View PDF' button to read the paper; there is no paywall. The wildly incorrect statement that China's population will halve by 2035 is very much off base: > The reference projections for the five largest countries in 2100 were India (1·09 billion [0·72–1·71], Nigeria (791 million [594–1056]), China (732 million [456–1499]), the USA (336 million [248–456]), and Pakistan (248 million [151–427]). China will become the largest economy starting around 2035 but the US is once again forecasted to become the largest economy starting around 2098, according to that study. With the semiconductor on-goings (both by the United States as well as a the EU) over the last six or so months I think this changes the calculus on this, though. --- I am wholly against child labor in all its forms and posters who are arguing that bagging groceries part-time after school as a middle-class kid is somehow equivalent to working in a meatpacking plant (a slaughterhouse) or on a construction site are either woefully naive or are arguing in bad faith.
- SuperShibe 4y agothe children yearn for the mines
- dirtyid 4y agoUsing kids to plug (certain) labour gaps should be permitted but onorously expensive, kids need to cost twice/thrice as much to employ. Most of extra pay beyond minimum wage should be locked away and made available after they turn 18.