Tangle - The child labor laws in Arkansas.

Episode Date: March 29, 2023

Earlier this month, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed HB1410, known as the "Youth Hiring Act of 2023." Most controversially, the bill allows teenagers under the age of 16 to start a job without getting a work permit through the Arkansas Department of Labor and Licensing. Also, a reader asks about the topics I don't like writing about.You can read today's podcast here, today’s “Under the Radar” story here.Today’s clickables: Quick Hits (1:31), Today’s Story (3:12), Right’s Take (5:34), Left’s Take (9:26), Isaac’s Take (13:46 ), Your Questions Answered (18:50), Under the Radar (20:46), Numbers (21:44), Have A Nice Day (22:24)You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here.Our podcast is written by Isaac Saul and edited by Zosha Warpeha. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75.Our newsletter is edited by Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo.--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tanglenews/message Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca.

From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle podcast, the place we get views from across the political spectrum. Some independent thinking without all that hysterical nonsense you find everywhere else. I'm your host, Isaac Saul, and on today's episode, we're going to be talking about child labor laws, more specifically, some changes to child labor laws in Arkansas and some of the debate around those changes. Before we jump in, I want to quickly address something from yesterday's podcast. In yesterday's reader question, I responded to someone proposing a hypothetical where President Biden pardoned former President Trump for alleged campaign finance crimes related to Stormy Daniels. I addressed the different ideas out there about Biden pardoning Trump in that case and others,

but neglected to mention a real-world technicality about the hypothetical. Biden obviously can pardon Trump for federal crimes, but not for state crimes like some of the charges he's likely to be facing in New York. I was mostly just having fun with the idea, but for all you pro-pardon folks, that's something worth keeping in mind. All right, with that out of the way, we're going to jump in today with our quick hits. today with our quick hits. First up, former Vice President Mike Pence must appear before a January 6th grand jury that is investigating efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Number two, the IRS reportedly visited the home of journalist Matt Taibbi around the same time he provided congressional testimony on his Twitter files reporting, drawing accusations of intimidation. Number three, the U.S. Senate will suspend data sharing with Russia on its nuclear arsenal.

Number four, U.S. prosecutors filed a revised indictment against Sam Bankman Freed that includes a new bribery charge, alleging payments to Chinese officials to unfreeze his company's crypto assets. Number five, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and Tesla CEO Elon Musk were among several prominent figures who co-signed a letter urging a pause on the training of next-generation artificial intelligence, warning of unforeseen consequences.

The governor signed the Youth Hiring Act of 2023 into law. It allows those younger than 16 years of age to work in Arkansas without needing an employment certificate. House Bill 1410 relates to the work permit that is required for an individual under 16 years of age when they want to get a job. So one small regulation, one small burden on businesses that and also steps in front of the parents decision making process about whether their child under 16 years of age can get a job. Business leaders and advocates for children worry a labor law that passed the House and Senate this week could lead to an increase in child exploitation. Earlier this month, Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed HB 1410, known as the Youth Hiring Act of 2023. Most controversially, the bill allows teenagers under the age of 16 to start a job without getting a work permit through the Arkansas Department of Labor and Licensing. Child labor laws are dictated

by a combination of federal and state laws. In Arkansas, you can hire any teenager 14 years and older, though there are restrictions on how much they can work and which jobs they can take. Previously, teenagers younger than 16 had to send the application to the state's Department of Labor and Licensing with signatures from the parents and businesses and then wait for approval to take a job. Now, that part of the process has been removed. Arkansas' bill is not unique. States across the country facing labor shortages are looking for ways to make it easier to hire teenagers. In Minnesota, there is a bill to allow 16 and 17-year-olds to work in the construction industry. In Iowa, legislators are considering a bill to permit 14 and 15-year-olds

to work in freezers and meat coolers, which is currently prohibited. In Ohio, legislators just passed a law allowing teenagers to work until 9 p.m. on school nights. Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Labor announced a crackdown on child labor after saying they've observed a 69% increase of illegally employed kids since 2018. And in February, it fined a company in Arkansas that was caught employing children as young as 13 who were cleaning saws with caustic chemicals in meatpacking plants. The New York Times also recently published an investigative report on large U.S. companies employing migrant children to dangerous, grueling jobs across the country. Governor Sanders defended the legislation, saying Arkansas believes protecting kids is most important, but doing

so with arbitrary burdens on parents to get permission from the government for their child to get a job is burdensome and obsolete, and she emphasized that all child labor laws will still apply and we expect businesses to comply just as they are required to do now. Today, we're going to take a Many on the right support the proposed legislation, arguing that teenagers benefit from work and there's too much red tape right now. Others argue the left is being hysterical about rather minor changes. Some say these changes are necessary to meet the labor shortage and create more opportunity for teenagers. In Reason, J.B. Tuchile said critics

were losing their mind over Arkansas making it a bit easier for teens to work. Predictably, the usual suspects piled on, accusing state lawmakers of sacrificing children to mammon, he wrote. But Arkansas is hardly alone, and the move might not only fill jobs, it could also improve young Americans' prospects for future prosperity. Critics cited the danger of illegal child labor involving migrant teens to attack eased legal employment. Yet Arkansas is meeting the standards set by other states with its new work rules. It's also, as Vox's Ellen Iannis conceded, in good company, seeking to reduce barriers to teen employment. Importantly, more opportunities means not just more workers,

but potentially greater prosperity for teens who gain early job experience, he said. Economist Raj Chetty's research indicates a strong correlation between teenage participation in the labor force and upward mobility. It's a connection that's been made multiple times in the past. There is a lot of benefit to be had from letting teenagers earn income and would be a lot to sacrifice to satisfy critics who have their panties in a bunch over very minor reform. In fact, loosening the rules even further would be a great idea. The Washington Examiner editorial board said it's a good thing Arkansas just made child labor easier. Most successful adults began working as teenagers, the board said.

Perhaps they delivered newspapers or manned the till out of McDonald's. Perhaps they spent weeks in the summer detasseling corn or their Saturdays directing cars into parking spots before college football games. But whatever they did, all those people who worked as teenagers learned at a young age an important lesson for adulthood, that they needed to work, earn, and be responsible for making their own way in life. Arkansas and Governor Sanders should be commended for making it easier for more teenagers to work. Several liberals are freaking out over the new law, but it should be a model for national child labor policy. This isn't sending eight-year-olds to coal mines. It just brings Arkansas into line with several other states,

not all of them Republican. Some opponents claim permitting allows a state to verify each child's age, but birth certificates and W-9 tax forms already do this. There is nothing magical about a state permit application that makes it impossible to lie or makes one's age official. It's just one more redundant piece of paperwork that irritatingly slows legitimate hiring. In Fox News, Arkansas resident Nick Steele defended Sanders from attacks. Governor Sanders stands accused of doing the bidding of big business, putting profits ahead of children's education and development, Steele wrote. Some prominent influencers are circulating misleading pictures of her signing a bill next to a preteen, falsely alleging that it's this education and development, Steele wrote. Some prominent influencers are circulating misleading pictures of her signing a bill next to a preteen, falsely alleging that it's this reform, or linking

the policy to stories about illegally employed young kids hired in violation of the state's requirements, or deceitfully accusing Governor Sanders of wanting to get minority children working in meatpacking plants. These attacks have no resemblance to reality. We're talking about busing tables a couple nights a week after school, working the checkout counter on weekends, and staying busy during summer. And the main push didn't come from big businesses, but from families like mine. We want more of the freedom that lets our children flourish and are not a state that values perpetual adolescence and government control. As a parent, I couldn't be more proud of my state, and I know we're doing the bidding of families, not businesses.

All right, that is it for the right-er saying, which brings us to what the left is saying. Many on the left criticize the changes, saying the U.S. is seeing a surge of child labor in dangerous industries and actually needs to be cracking down. Some argue that teenagers can benefit from work, but say these laws make exploitation of minors easier too. Others say too much work is actually a bad thing for young teens and can hurt teenagers' long-term prospects. The New York Times editorial board wrote about the dangerous race to put more children to work. In February, the Department of Labor announced it had discovered 102 teenagers working in hazardous conditions, including minors who were working with dangerous chemicals and cleaning brisket

saws and head splitters. Three of them suffered injuries, including one with caustic burns. Ten of those children worked in Arkansas. Rather than taking action to prevent further exploitation of children, Arkansas went the opposite direction. Governor Sanders made it easier for companies to put children to work. Arkansas is at the vanguard of a concerted effort by business lobbyists and Republican legislators to roll back regulations to protect children from abuse. At least nine other states are pushing bills that would expand work hours for children,

lift restrictions on hazardous occupations, allow them to work in locations that serve alcohol, or lower the state minimum wage for minors. The response from states is not to protect children from exploitation, but instead make it legal. The real target for lobbyists is not after-school jobs at the hardware store, but a labor force that includes many unaccompanied migrant children working in factories. Also in the Times, Terry Gerson asked if we're really arguing about whether 14-year-olds should be working in meatpacking plants. These rollbacks are happening just when the country is experiencing a surge of child labor violations on a scale we haven't seen

for years. Recent investigative reporting by the New York Times and Reuters has exposed migrant children as young as 12 working at car factories, meat processors, and construction sites. Household name companies generally avoid liability through the use of some sketchy subcontractors and staffing agencies. The Labor Department also said it had seen a 69% increase since 2018. It found that in the last fiscal year, 835 companies employed more than 3,800 children in violation of federal labor laws. It's not just hazardous work, but less shocking, yet still deeply troubling cases of teens working schedules far longer and later than what's legally permissible. Yes, we're facing a labor

shortage caused by COVID and a decline in immigration, but some business interests and lawmakers would apparently prefer to expand the pool of exploitable workers to vulnerable children rather than improve working conditions to attract age-appropriate employees. Research shows meatpacking jobs would be more attractive if they paid just a little better, around $2.85 more per hour. But raising wages, providing benefits, and giving signing bonuses would mean slimmer profits. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown.

When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season?

Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages 6 months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca. In the Los Angeles Times, Stephen Greenhouse said there couldn't be a worse time to roll back child labor laws.

Not only are we seeing a spike in child labor violations, but U.S. school children move backward academically during the pandemic. Many studies have found that students who work 20 or more hours a week are more likely to drop out of school and have their grades decline, not to mention that they're often too exhausted to do schoolwork or stay awake in class, Greenhouse said. Dropping out can lead to worse economic prospects. High school dropouts had medium weekly earnings of just $626 in 2021, 23% below the $809 earned by high school graduates without college degrees. Workers with a bachelor's degree earn $1,334 a week, more than double what high school dropouts earn. The move to ease these laws is an

effort long backed by the Libertarian Koch brothers and their network, and sends a strong message to employers that hiring young teens is just fine. Teenagers doing 5 to 15 hours of paid work and safe jobs can have worthwhile experiences, but rolling back laws so that they can work 6 hours on school days or until 11 p.m. can have broader negative consequences. It's important that teens have enough time for school, sports, and other activities, and enough time with friends and families and for sleep. All right, that is it for what the left and the right are saying, which brings us to my take. So when I was growing up, not to sound like the right are saying, which brings us to my take. So when I was growing up, not to sound like the old guy here, my parents would send me and my older brothers to Texas to

live with my cousin and attend what we basically called man camp. As an angsty 14-year-old, they didn't exactly need to push me out the door. My cousin owned a cactus nursery and worked as a mechanic, and I spent most days outside in the brutal heat changing tires, digging holes in the desert, and learning to drive manual shift trucks or shoot a rifle when work was over. I remember being absolutely exhausted at the end of the day, and I remember how proud I was when my cousin wrote me a $1,500 check at the end of summer for my work. I loved it there, and I've gone to visit for weeks or months at a time every year since. Many days I actually miss being outside and doing manual labor. My first real job I had after quote-unquote babysitting, which was really just watching TV while a neighbor's kids slept, was at a dog shelter when I was about 14 or 15. I had to wake up before the sun rose and spent my days mopping up urine and defecation,

transferring scary and aggressive dogs through various pens, feeding them, and interacting with people dropping off their pets or coming to adopt. The job sucked. It smelled bad, I was tired, and I made a little money, learned how to wake up before 6am and do a job. It also motivated me to have a different job when I got older. Then I did all the normal teenage jobs, busboy, lifeguard, snow shoveling, and paperboy. By the time I was 16 and had my license, I was posting flyers around town advertising a service where I would pick up drunk people and drive them home. So this was the context for me when I first saw some of these headlines percolating about this bill in Arkansas. And maybe I'm just

a grumpy old guy now, but I think the headlines were a little overblown. Some of the excerpts I saw were from places like the New York Times, who said that instead of preventing further exploitation of children, Arkansas went the opposite direction. Others, like the Guardian, said Arkansas was leading the charge to weaken labor protections. Are we actually arguing about whether 14-year-olds should work in meatpacking plants, Terry Gerson asked above, under what the left is saying? Gotta admit, loosening child labor laws was not on my top 10 list for our California legislative session this year, California Governor Gavin Newsom

snarked about the bill. And then I read the actual details of the story, which, on the whole, seem like totally reasonable changes. The Wrights' framing about this is basically on the money. Arkansas is essentially removing one item of paperwork from a process for 14 and 15-year-olds to get hired, which will undoubtedly make it a little easier for them to go through the process of applying for and onboarding at a job. That's it. This isn't 1900. They aren't sending kids into the coal mine or condemning them to a life of low-wage work. In fact, the opposite is true. As ReasonsJDTuchile noted under what the right is saying,

teenage work is one of the best ways to enhance someone's upward mobility. It is, quite literally, one of the surest paths out of difficult and grueling jobs. That's to say nothing of the positive impact working with people in real life would probably have on a generation who's addicted to their phones, overrun with anxiety, and increasingly lacking purpose or hope. Besides, it's 2023. If a teenager is being mistreated at their job, they're more likely to make their boss infamous on TikTok than they are to suffer silently. they're more likely to make their boss infamous on TikTok than they are to suffer silently.

And not to veer off into media criticism here, but the overblown hysterics on this story in the media, almost exclusively from liberal writers and journalists, is a great example of why so few conservatives trust the legacy news anymore. The bad press probably comes from many of them simply loathing Sarah Huckabee Sanders, or maybe a lack of familiarity with the actual bill, but there is no good reason to conflate what she did with the exploitation of migrant children across the country. All that being said, corporate behemoths like the ones exposed by the Times

and Reuters who are genuinely exploiting children are not going to be stopped by state work permit applications. Most of them are exploiting children after they are hired with long hours or by placing them in dangerous situations or both. These children are known to the federal government and allowed in while being processed. This is a separate issue from what's happening in states like Arkansas, and we should be able to talk about them as separate issues. Not for nothing, but making legal hiring easier is

actually a good way to reduce the kind of under-the-table illegal hiring that we're seeing surge right now. Work is good. We should embrace legislation that cuts some red tape for teenagers to get suitable jobs, especially considering the need for those workers right now. Do I wish people were getting better pay and benefits? Of course. Do I think the government should step up enforcement and investigation of child labor violations? Absolutely. Do I think a 15-year-old should have to apply for a work permit from the state capitol to get a job at a restaurant? No. There is plenty of room to hold all these things at once, and we should give it a shot. All right, that is it for my take, which brings us to today's reader question.

This one's from Eric in Holly Springs, North Carolina. Eric said, what topic or topics do you dread writing about, either just out of the unfamiliarity with the topic or out of a lack of interest? This is a great question, Eric. So I think the topics I like to write about the least are those tied to macroeconomic issues. For instance, inflation is one of the most covered topics in Tangle, but I find it pretty dry and often feel out of my depth, honestly. Part of that's because I never worked as an economics reporter. And the other part of it is because economists are notoriously squishy and often wrong. Usually, if I'm covering something I don't know much about, I can reach out to some knowledgeable sources or spend a few

days researching and really quote-unquote get it. But with macroeconomic issues, so many of the experts get stuff wrong so regularly and disagree with each other so vehemently that it is hard to know what is good information and what isn't. There are other issues I don't love writing about because they're so emotionally charged now. I genuinely don't like covering Trump anymore. I used to love writing about his presidency because I found it novel and, frankly, fascinating, and he regularly shifted the Overton window when he was in the White House. But now it's impossible to write a sentence about him without his supporters or critics finding something to be enraged about. Trans issues are tough too, even more so than with Trump.

People on opposite sides see the folks they disagree with as fundamentally evil, and it's increasingly hard to break through with reason or empathy. That being said, I will say I really do find most of what we get to cover in Tangle genuinely fascinating. I love politics, government, history, and I love people. I love debate. I love thinking about ways to improve our country. Most of the time, our topics fall into at least one of those categories, so I genuinely get a lot out of writing about them. All right, that is it for our reader question today, which brings us to our under the radar section. Is remote work receding from American life? Only about 5% of workers were remote before

the pandemic, but once COVID-19 hit, remote work surged and countless think pieces were written about how work would never be the same and offices may never be normal again. Now though, millions fewer Americans are already working remotely compared to last year, and remote work seems to be moving closer and closer to pre-COVID levels. In 2021, 60.1% of establishments had employees rarely or never working from home, but last year that number was up to 72.5%. Meanwhile, just 13% of job postings in March of 2023 were for remote positions, down from 17% in March of 2022, but still well above the 4% pre-pandemic rate. Axios has the story, and there's a link to it in today's episode description.

All right, next up is our numbers section. The number of cases involving children aged 13 to 17 who were illegally cleaning meat processing plants in 13 states was more than 100, according to a recent Labor Department report. The number of cases of minors who were employed illegally in 2022 was 3,876. The number of cases of minors who were employed illegally in 2015 was 1,012. The maximum number of hours 14 and 15-year-olds can work on a school day, according to federal law, is just three. The average hourly wage for teenagers in the United States, according to ZipRecruiter, is now $19. All right, and last but not least, our Have a Nice Day section. All right, and last but not least, our have a nice day section. Yesterday, I wrote about some of the divisiveness and intensity around the protests in Israel.

A Tangle reader living in Israel, who I correspond with regularly, wrote in to ask if they could share some hopeful stories. In reading them, I realized they are precisely the kind of stories that never make the news, so I asked if I could share them in the newsletter. Here's what they wrote. A neighbor of mine recorded some conversations from a protest rally. Some anti-reform protesters were talking to Haredim and some of what you would call ultra-nationalists, and everyone seemed to be respectful and empathetic. My wife's kidney recipient, a thoroughly anti-reform Tel Avivian, just made her usual pre-Passover call to see how we're doing and catch up. We are a pro-reform family, though we don't agree with some of the proposed laws.

But the best story I heard is about two Israelis at a train station, one coming from an anti-reform rally, getting off, and another heading to a pro-reform rally, getting on. The fellow heading to the rally saw the fellow coming from, who was carrying an Israeli flag, and slapped his head and said to himself, I should have brought my flag. The other fellow hearing him and knowing where he was going, held his flag out and said, here, take mine. All right, everybody, that is it for today's podcast. As always, if you want to support our work, please go to meetangle.com slash membership and become a member. We'll be right back here same time tomorrow.

Have a good one. Peace. Our podcast is written by me, Isaac Saul, and edited by Zosia Warpea. Our script is edited by Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and Bailey Saul. Shout out to our interns, Audrey Moorhead and Watkins Kelly, and our social media manager, Magdalena Bokova, who created our podcast logo. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet75. For more from Tangle, check out our website at www.retangle.com. We'll see you next time. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu,

a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season?

Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages 6 months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca.