Children as young as 14 could soon be allowed to work overnight shifts in Florida as part of a push by the Republican-led legislature to relieve labor shortages they attribute to the deportation of undocumented immigrants.
According to CNN and other outlets, the effort to ease labor laws in Florida specifically comes as Gov. Ron DeSantis advocates for “dirt cheap” labor to replace the work once done by the very immigrants Republicans were so eager to boot from the country.
“Why do we say we need to import foreigners, even import them illegally, when you know, teenagers used to work at these resorts, college students should be able to do this stuff,” DeSantis said last week.
The Sunshine State has been gradually loosening its child labor laws for years. CNN reports that the legislature passed a law in 2024 allowing homeschooled 16- and 17-year-olds to work “any hour of the day.”
But Florida isn’t alone in this push. In recent years, GOP lawmakers in other red states like Arkansas, Indiana, and Iowa have passed laws making it easier for teenagers to work longer hours and take on more jobs—seemingly to fill poorly paid and undesirable positions that employers once relied on undocumented workers to fill.
“The consequences are potentially disastrous,” Reid Maki, the director of the Child Labor Coalition, which advocates against exploitative labor policies, told PBS News. “You can’t balance a perceived labor shortage on the backs of teen workers.”
But the desire to put kids to work only seems to be ramping up. One report found that since 2021, 28 states introduced bills to weaken child labor laws, and 12 states actually enacted such laws. By comparison, 14 states introduced new child labor-related bills in 2024 alone.
What’s worse, some unscrupulous businesses aren’t even waiting for states to pass laws that allow children to work. In May 2023, several McDonald’s franchises in Kentucky were accused of hiring a combined 300 children, some of them reportedly younger than 10.
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Republicans may argue they’re filing and passing these bills for practical reasons, such as addressing labor shortages in a competitive market. But the more likely explanation for the surge of new child labor bills is that Republicans want to reduce regulations on businesses—using child labor as a tool to directly attack longstanding federal safety rules.
It’s already legal for teenagers to take on certain jobs or paid internships, and children from middle- or upper-class families have been able to take advantage of these opportunities for years. But the Republican lawmakers pushing for looser labor laws aren’t focused on making it easier for teens to babysit or work the drive-thru at a fast food chain. Instead, they’re aiming to allow 16-year-olds to cover night shifts.
And, conveniently for them, they have allies in the White House who seem perfectly okay with this.
A report from the Center for American Progress revealed that Project 2025, the conservative blueprint for Donald Trump’s second presidential administration, advocated for rolling back child labor laws because … kids like danger?
“Some young adults show an interest in inherently dangerous jobs,” Project 2025 claims. “With parental consent and proper training, certain young adults should be allowed to learn and work in more dangerous occupations.”
Members of Trump’s Cabinet have also turned a blind eye to child labor. Earlier this month, newly appointed Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer bragged about cutting $33 million from her department’s budget, including a program that helped regulate and prevent child labor abroad.
What’s also working in the Republicans’ favor is the fact that enforcement of child labor laws has been lax. Beyond the Kentucky incident, a November report by Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families revealed a staggering 266% increase in state-level child labor law violations between the fiscal years 2020 and 2023.
With enforcement already weak, it’s no surprise that some businesses and legislators are taking advantage of the situation to push the boundaries further—without much pushback.
The bill being considered by the Florida Legislature would remove employment time restrictions for 14- and 15-year-olds if they are homeschooled or attend virtual school. Under current law, these children are currently prohibited from working earlier than 6:30 AM or later than 11 PM.
If passed, this could have disastrous consequences. A report from the Florida Policy Institute warned that these types of bills could “reverse decades of child labor protections in Florida” and noted that child labor violations in Florida had already risen from 95 in 2019 to 281 in 2022.
Beyond the legal ramifications of passing such a measure, it’s maddening that Republicans are relying on children to fix the labor shortage created by their own xenophobic policies. After all, it was Republicans who took a harsh stance on immigration and pushed for more deportations—policies that economists have long warned would lead to labor shortages and inflation.
Yet, as red states continue to weaken child labor laws in an ill-fated attempt to fix the problem they created, the message from some lawmakers seems clear: Employers deserve more flexibility—even if it’s at the expense of protecting the most vulnerable workers.
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