“This Ancient Atrocity”: The Return of Child Labor in the United States: Why Now? What Should be Done?

We tend to think of child labor in factories as a thing of the past. However, child labor in the US is surging with recent investigations and reporting finding violations in meat processing, automobile, packaged food and seafood manufacturing. In several cases, children as young as 14 have been exposed to chemicals, dangerous machinery and long hours (often working in the middle of the night). In this policy brief, David Weil examines the causes for this upsurge and connect it to the confluence of three forces: the presence of a large pool of unaccompanied minors in the US awaiting asylum decisions; labor shortages arising from the post-pandemic recovery; and the widescale use of “fissured” business models relying on contracted workforces in all of the recent cases. Given these causes, Weil reviews steps that can be taken under the federal law (the Fair Labor Standards Act) that regulates child labor as well as review potential revisions of that law to prevent future violations.