Youth unemployment is terribly high. More than half of kids age 16 to 19 do not engage in any gainful labor, a higher percentage than since World War II. The reason has to do with the combination of recession, the wicked minimum wage, and child labor laws that give kids too late a start in the workforce.
One blessed exception is the farm, which has been exempted from child labor laws since the times of the New Deal. Farms can hire people 12 and up. (There are other exceptions that apply child actors in Hollywood and also the wreath making industry – go figure.) Many lawmakers want to change that and force farms to only hire kids 14 or 15 and older.
Meanwhile, the geniuses at the Department of Labor are cracking down to enforce existing law, driving vans onto blueberry farms in North Carolina and elsewhere and rounding up kids and fining farmers for offering poor people jobs and offering kids great work experience. This is all done in the name of human rights of course.
In fact, the truth is the reverse: this is a violation of human rights. Most of the people who are working in these plots are very poor and they need the jobs. The kids are made more valuable as workers and they get great experience. In fact, the American bourgeoisie could benefit from following this model, so that graduating kids have some more skills besides the ability to update their Facebook from their iPhone during classroom lectures.
But the Department of Labor, which has been working for 70 years to cartelize the labor force for labor unions and crush workers who dare to work for less than a wage of which Washington approves, will have none of it. It wants to make sure that youth have as few opportunities as possible.
