Business Math in Action

Chapter 1: Gross Income

Young People at Work

When you start looking for your first job, you may wonder if you will earn more than minimum wage, how many days and hours you can work, or where you will eat lunch. If you're under 14 years old, most states will not allow you to work, and if you are 15-17, you may not work during school hours except under certain school-to-work partnerships between schools and businesses. Child labor laws are in place to protect you from being exploited. They were enacted because less than a century ago, children as young as seven worked all day in U.S. factories, mills, and mines.

Throughout history, minors have always helped their families work on farms and in shops. But the Industrial Revolution, which began in the late 1700s, changed the way people worked. Huge factories were built, with assembly lines that required thousands of unskilled laborers. In the U.S. the working poor, especially immigrants, were hired at poverty-level wages to keep industry producing at top speed. Companies often hired whole families to do both heavy labor and jobs that required sharp eyesight and quick fingers.

In the mid-1800s, a typical workday lasted from dawn until sunset, and longer in the winter. A workweek could last 68-72 hours, often with no days off. In rural areas, where mills and mines were located, workers lived in "company towns." They rented poorly-built houses from the company and had to buy all their goods at overpriced company stores. The work schedule of employees in the 1800s was the most intense in the history of labor.

Millions of poor children had difficult lives. Denied an education, they were given tasks that were both dangerous and mind-numbing, usually working 12 to 16 hours a day. In the cities, boys as young as five hawked newspapers on the streets, often working until midnight. They earned between 25 and 45 cents a day—adjusted for inflation, 10 dollars a day or less.

By 1900 many states had child labor laws, but they were usually ignored by business owners and often did not apply to immigrants. In 1908 a photographer named Lewis Hine took his camera to the mine shafts, fields, and factory floors, showing the hard lives of child workers. His photo essays stunned the public and caused many to call for change. Finally, in 1938, Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act, which established a work week of 40 hours and a minimum wage of 40 cents an hour—more than ten times what many children had been earning (an amendment in 1949 raised the minimum wage to 75 cents an hour). Most important, the law prohibited businesses to hire anyone under the age of 16. As a U.S. citizen, you enjoy the benefits of our labor laws, but elsewhere in the world more than 250 million children still work in harsh, often dangerous conditions.

English Language Arts/Writing

Our Labor Laws

Whether you work or not, list three important benefits you enjoy because of U.S. labor laws enacted to protect young workers.