Relax rules for young teen employees

There are many laws regulating the employment of children. Maybe too many. Both federal and state governments have laws regulating how many hours, and how late, young teens can work. In Wisconsin, those hours could be changing. Under current law, 14 and 15 year-olds can only work until 7pm, and 9pm during the summer months. Wisconsin lawmakers are voting to extend that to 11pm if the teens don’t have school the next day. If they do, they could only work until 9:30pm. Some argue that would chip away at child labor laws, but this is hardly forced labor. These would be kids working low-level jobs at places like restaurants, golf courses, movie theatres and arcades looking for a little spending money. There are certainly worse ways young teens could be spending their time. By working, they are being supervised, learning about hard work, and making some money. The tourism industry is in favor because so many businesses are facing labor shortages and letting young people work more could help that at least a bit. Kids this age may already be up late participating or going to sporting events or working on school projects. Our government shouldn’t keep these kids from staying up later to do some work and get paid for it.