This State Is Seeing Child Labor Violations Skyrocket

A new study shows that work permits for minors help drive down child labor exploitation — if states don’t get rid of them.

by Paul Blest, More Perfect Union

In 1914, Arkansas voters passed a ballot initiative banning child labor, becoming one of the first states to do so. As local papers reported at the time, the amendment passed with the largest majority of any measure on the ballot that year, and by December the state had started sending “employment certificates” to schools.  

Last year, more than a century after that landmark victory, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed a bill eliminating work permits for kids younger than 16, which required parental consent and employers to verify the employee’s age. Arkansas’ “Youth Hiring Act” was one of a wave of laws to pass in conservative states over the past few years loosening restrictions on child labor.

"The Governor believes protecting kids is most important, but this permit was an arbitrary burden on parents to get permission from the government for their child to get a job," Sanders' press office told NPR at the time. "All child labor laws that actually protect children still apply and we expect businesses to comply just as they are required to do now."

But the tool the state eliminated had a demonstrable impact on protecting young workers from labor exploitation — at the same time that serious violations have skyrocketed around the country, according to a new report from the nonpartisan group Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families. 

The report cites, for instance, University of Maryland data showing that the prevalence rate of child labor cases is 17 percent lower in states that require such certificates, and the prevalence rate of minors involved in those cases is more than 43 percent lower. 

Peter Gess, the nonprofit group's economic policy director, told More Perfect Union that “some of the arguments against protections [in the early 20th century] are some of the same arguments we're hearing around the country now, including in Arkansas.” Gess’s organization is advocating for restoring certificates next year.

The new report shows that cases, violations, and penalties involving child labor have all increased in Arkansas over the past decade; among the surrounding states, Arkansas is near the top in all categories. And while much of the data covers the period up to 2022, Gess says early data shows state child labor cases have “decreased dramatically” since the law went into effect last summer, though it’s too soon to say for certain whether this has been driven by the rollback. 

“We can hypothesize that because we don’t have these certificates, there are [fewer] opportunities to investigate these kinds of things. At the same time, we're worried about a decrease in the number of investigators in the Arkansas Department of Labor and Licensing,” Gess said. 

Like other states, Arkansas has seen a wave of high-profile child labor violations in recent years. The U.S. Department of Labor announced an investigation last month into Tyson Foods for allegedly employing minors at two poultry processing plants. Earlier this year the DOL obtained an injunction against an Arkansas restaurant owner, Tim Steppach, who was illegally scheduling kids under the age of 16, committing wage theft, and retaliating against juvenile employees. Steppach has separately been charged with sexually assaulting minor employees. 

“These protections are important because we know from these high profile cases that children can, you know, be abused in the workplace as labor,” Gess said. “But even worse things as well.” 

The drive to roll back child labor regulations has been led by the conservative think tank Foundation for Government Accountability, a group backed by Republican megadonor Richard Uihlein that helped write the Arkansas bill and described work permits for minors as “classist.” The FGA was also instrumental in the effort to roll back child labor regulations in Florida earlier this year, though the legislation ultimately signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis was much more narrow in scope than some Republicans had pushed for. 

Gess said that although the state has a “libertarian streak” that’s hostile to outsiders, groups like FGA have gained more sway in Arkansas in recent years as politics have become more nationalized. And while the state Department of Labor and Licensing “has done a good job of going around the state protecting our children,” Arkansas doesn’t have a “dedicated effort” toward tackling child labor. 

During the same session that the work permit elimination bill was passed, the state strengthened the civil penalties for child labor violations from $1,000 to $5,000 and made willful violation of the laws a crime. The state labor department, however, is like many around the country in that it’s woefully under-resourced; a public records request by More Perfect Union found that the department’s total budget for 2024-2025 is under $2.8 million, as they attempt to serve a population of more than 3 million people.

In addition to reversing the elimination of the permits, the Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families report says lawmakers should consider adding a number of other protections including restitution to victims for victims, creating a private right of action for individuals to sue violators, educating kids about their labor rights in public schools, making corporations liable for the use of child labor in their supply chains, and more. 

As the second Trump administration takes shape with a stated intent to slash federal regulations, Gess thinks empowering regulators on the state level will become increasingly vital. 

“It’s important to add these protections at the state level to make up for any sort of drawdown that might happen to the federal level,” Gess said. “I do think we will see an increasing role for states generally and regulatory affairs across the country.” 

“You can get folks on both sides of the aisle to agree that we need to protect children,” he added. “They may disagree on how, but I do see an increased role for the state.”