Posted on 04/18/2023 8:02:01 AM PDT by Twotone
A video of a 13-year-old working at Chick-fil-A went viral recently after an advocacy group called More Perfect Union uploaded it to Twitter and then pointed the finger at the "National Restaurant Association—a lobby group funded by big food corporations," calling it "a key driver behind new bills letting kids work dangerous jobs."
Sure, taking drive-thru orders and slinging waffle fries at a Chick-fil-A your dad owns sounds like the definition of danger. Exactly like working in a coal mine.
Over the past year, to help deal with labor shortages, several states have pushed for legislative changes that would let more teenagers work. New Jersey enacted a bill allowing 16-year-olds to work up to 50 hours a week during summer break with parental approval. In Ohio, the legislature is considering a proposal that would make it possible for 14- and 15-year-olds to work longer hours during the school year—one of the few policies Democrats and Republicans in the legislature agree on. And last month, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed a bill that eliminated a requirement that 14- and 15-year-olds obtain a permit before getting a job.
These bills don't primarily benefit the big food lobby, as the union-backed group that posted the video claims. And it's not an evil plot to exploit children for profit. The people who stand to benefit most are teenagers themselves, who by having a job can learn to show up on time, follow instructions, work collaboratively, and manage money that they earned themselves and therefore value more.
"I feel as if I've learned so much from this simple job over the past few years," a teen who worked as a ski instructor told The New York Times in 2022. "I've learned how to work with children, become a better teacher, and how to help different people based on how they learn new skills."
"My job has helped me personally in many ways, I was super shy before I started and now I am more confident," added another high school student, who was working 5 days a week after school. "I have learned time management so that I can get from school to work and then come home and do homework."
Plenty of data backs up the claim that holding a job as a teen has positive effects. A 2016 paper in the Southern Economic Journal, for example, found that high schoolers working 20 hours a week during their senior year had 12 percent higher earnings in their careers than those that didn't, although that wage premium has declined over the years.
"In a job, teens are forced to discover or build out parts of themselves that are not required for school, home or sports," psychologist Lisa Damour told The Washington Post last year. She stressed that having a job teaches kids to answer to adults who aren't their parents, because when they do the same thing "over and over, there's no need to grow."
We need to stop treating teenagers as inherently fragile, or they'll become that way. Real-world exposure to the challenge of getting paid to do things that other people value will benefit them for the rest of their lives.
The socialists seem to be doing everything they could think of to weaken and disrupt the nurturing and strengthening of the new generation.
Make the schools a total joke, make discipline in the workplace an impossibility, have plenty of drugs available, have hours and hours of toxic gaming and sociopathic music available, break up families and encourage gay parenting, transsexualization, and above all, keep them away from any formal religious training or worship.
Keep them busy with trivial matters from waking up to going to sleep, so they never have a minute to meditate and size up what is being done to them.
Just the shotgun approach of the communists as they erode and subvert our nation.
The people who stand to benefit most are teenagers themselves, who by having a job can learn to show up on time, follow instructions, work collaboratively, and manage money that they earned themselves and therefore value more.
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Bingo. The kind of dirty, dangerous, health-impairing jobs that rightly resulted in child labor laws no longer exist. A lot of kids would get structure and discipline in their lives that they might be missing at home or in school. That would make them better adults, which would be good for them and society.
I started applying for jobs when I was 13. I was turned down by McDonalds (who probably guessed I wasn’t 14 1/2 which was the legal minimum age at that time) and got a much inferior job instead.
Start no earlier than age 14, an age where they start thinking for themselves. 12-16 hours/week. Weekends would be best when parents won’t have to parent and the kids don’t have to think about school for the next day.
They could start their own IRA’s. Employers need the American labor.
Council them against the siren call of cars/stereos.
I am not sure you realize that this is leading to kids working in packing plants.
I agree. Kids should not be working in packing plants. But they are certainly able to work at a fast food restaurant, or pick strawberries, or do lots of other non-dangerous work, & they’d be the better for it. Do we always have to “throw the baby out with the bath water”?
“But they are certainly able to work at a fast food restaurant, or pick strawberries”
Picking strawberries and raspberries was my first job when I was 14.
When I was a teen-—an A & W opened up in our small town.
THE ENTIRE FAMILY OF 6 or 7 worked there...and they knew almost all of their customers.
Myself & one brother picked strawberries, also.
ALL THE DAIRY FARMS had entire family working on the farm.
Even a 4 year old can throw ‘scratch’ to chickens.
We cleaned hen houses—gathered eggs—cleaned gutters in dairy milking barn-—threw down silage & bales of hay & shoveled oats into bins when that harvest was in swing.
ALL 4 of us have been self-employed—One with 65 employees.
Kids from surrounding farms did well as adults, also.
WE ALL WENT TO A ONE ROOM SCHOOL.
1st job - aged 13 - Greek Restaurant - $1.50 an hour under the table - usually about 20 hours a week.
Loved the $30.00 every Friday.
I was Rich!!
Yes, and it would give them a sense of self respect and worth. Being given participation trophies and being told they’re special does nothing for them. Learning some work skills and earning a paycheck has significant value for the kids.
Kids should be REQUIRED to work and earn money as part of any compulsory education. Without learning the value of work, education is pointless.
No, but when you write a new law you have to put yourself in the shows of a sociopath who will use the law to the wrong end.
To me at the time, danger was jumping off an overpass bridge into the river below, ramp-jumping on my Huffy bike, or swimming out into the ocean well over my head. All things I did multiple tmies.
I also delivered newspapers at 5 in the morning through darkened neighborhoods.
YUP; my first job was as a dishwasher/busboy in a bowling ally, could walk from school to job in about 15 minutes.
Job to home in about 1/2 hour.
I’m jealous as hell of your job——I was only getting $1.25 an hour, but I did get a 40 hour week.
I was the richest guy in my freshman class.
No, you can’t. Trying to write laws that address every single situation is not possible. Somebody will always come up with a new situation that is not addressed. Common sense has to be the frame-work, & kids should be able to do jobs that are not dangerous. Or even do dangerous jobs if they have the maturity & skills to do them.
Ha! I also had the bonus of all I could eat homemade Baklava. Yum! Yum! 😋 - for a 13 year old..
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