Indiana Republican Wants Kids To Drop Out After 8th Grade To Work On Farms
What year is this?
In 2023, there were 5,792 recorded child labor violations in the United States — which is more than five times the number of recorded child labor violations in the year 2015 (1012). Much of this has been fueled by fast food restaurants, where children as young as 10 have been discovered working at McDonalds until 2 a.m., but also teenagers who have been allowed to work longer and later than is legal. Why? Well, because it’s a tight labor market and they literally cannot find adults or even that many teenagers who are willing to work for the amount of money they are willing to pay people to work there.
The current maximum penalty for a child labor violation is $15,138, which, rather ironically, is just a little bit more than someone working full time at the federal minimum wage would make ($15,080) in a year. Some would argue that’s not enough of a deterrent — and if I were queen, I would make it at least whatever a year’s salary at the current living wage for a single person would be in their state, considering what it is they’re trying to get away with. This would start at about $45K, in Mississippi. Alas, as we learned all throughout last year, for some, the solution to our child labor problem is as simple as deciding that it’s not a problem at all.
One such person is Indiana Republican state Rep. Joanna King.
Earlier this month, as first reported by More Perfect Union, Rep. King proposed a bill (HB 1062) that would amend Indiana labor law to allow kids to drop out of school after the eighth grade and work full-time, 40 hours a week, on farms. Not even their own family farms (though that’s cool starting at 12!), but also on large corporate farms.
For real:
SECTION 1. IC 22-2-18.1-5.2 IS ADDED TO THE INDIANA CODE AS A NEW SECTION TO READ AS FOLLOWS [EFFECTIVE JULY 1, 2024]: Sec. 5.2. As used in this chapter, "exempted minor" refers to a minor: who has been excused from compulsory school attendance after completing grade 8; and whose parent submits to the minor's current or prospective employer:
A) signed statement from the parent declaring that the minor has been excused from school after completing grade 8; and
B) proof supporting the statement made under clause (A).
Later in the bill is the part where they can work 40 hours a week and 8 hours a day.
Alas, it seems that priorities like “keeping kids in school” don’t count for much when farm owners just really, really want to be able to pay people very little money to work for them and take advantage of as many desperate families as they can. The agriculture industry is already absurdly exempt from many labor laws, including the whole of the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, largely because “racism.” Farm owners are not required to pay overtime and, in many cases, smaller farms are even exempt from the minimum wage. They are also allowed to hire children as young as 12 — and, even, under certain circumstances, kids as young as 10. It’s not great! And now, I suppose, they want more.
Curiously, one of the only other things King has done that made any news was her support of a bill banning gender affirming care that would have taken away the rights of parents to make medical decisions for/with their children. A bill so bad it was overturned by a Trump appointee.
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“This is good public policy to protect our children from irreversible, harmful, life-altering procedures,” King said at the time, of the bill that would have barred trans kids under the age of 18 from getting “hormone therapy, puberty blockers and surgeries” in the state of Indiana.
So, just to be very, very clear here — Joanna King thinks that kids under the age of 18, even in concert with their doctors and parents, are incapable of knowing whether they are a boy or a girl and should thus be barred from accessing gender-affirming medical care, the vast majority of which is, in fact, reversible.
King does, however, think that kids and their parents are capable of making the decision to pull them out of school in the eighth grade in order to work full time on a farm. That’s not especially easy to reverse either, from both educational and social standpoints, and certainly does not bode well for their future success in life.
High school dropouts have a median salary of $26,000 a year, compared to high school grads with a median salary of $32,000. I was unable to find statistics on how well those who drop out after eighth grade do in comparison because when I tried to look those up, all I got was information about how much eighth grade teachers make and information about Little House on the Prairie times. That, I think, still tells you something significant.
This would be why we have spent so many years, Very Special Episodes, and shady musical numbers in pursuit of lowering the high school drop out rate.
Which, by the way, we have actually done! In 1994, the New York Times declared that we’d hit the lowest dropout rate in history, noting that “more girls than boys graduated in 1994, and more boys than girls dropped out, 19.9 percent compared to 17.5 percent.” By 2010, the number was down to 8 percent. Now? Well, as of 2021, the last year for which there are numbers, we’re at 5.2 percent.
That is a huge success. We should be proud of that and not look to go backwards. If teenagers old enough to obtain work permits want to milk cows and bale hay for some extra cash, more power to them — but let’s keep it to after school and weekends.
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But if they don't force kids into menial jobs at the age of 12, where will the ill-educated, deeply resentful GOP voters of tomorrow come from, Mr. Lib?
My great grandfather forced my grandfather to quit school after grade eight and go to work in the farm. My grandfather never forgave him for it.