The Republican Fantasy of Child Labor
By 
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has discovered a problem with the anti-immigration policies that once made him a GOP star. Luckily he has a solution.
The problem is that chasing immigrant workers out of his state created a labor shortage in some of its most important industries, such as construction, agriculture and tourism.
DeSantis’ solution? Put more kids to work.
“What’s wrong with expecting our young people to be able to work part-time?” DeSantis asked during a March 20 appearance with Donald Trump’s immigration czar, Tom Homan, at which he evoked a candy-colored past in which youngsters earned life lessons in the workplace. “That’s how it used to be when I was growing up. Why do we say we need to import foreigners, even import them illegally, when teenagers used to work at these resorts?”
Florida is not the first state to loosen child labor protections, or even the most aggressive in that effort. Last year eight states, all led by Republicans, did so, according to a tracking by the labor-affiliated Economic Policy Institute.
The most dangerous rollback, by EPI’s reckoning, was enacted by Iowa in 2023. The bill signed by Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds allows teens as young as 14 to work in previously prohibited hazardous jobs in industrial laundries, and those as young as 15 to perform light assembly work.
The measure also allows state agencies to waive restrictions on hazardous work for 16– and 17-year-olds, including demolition, roofing, excavation, and power-driven machine operation. Permissible hours for teens as young as 14 were extended to 9 p.m. from 7 p.m., the federal standard, during the school year. State penalties for violations were reduced.
The drive to reduce child labor restrictions has spread nationwide.
Get rid of the immigrants, put the 10 year olds to work. The Gilded Age is back baby!