Amid discoveries of 13-year-olds cleaning saws in meatpacking plants and 10-year-olds working in the kitchen at a McDonald's, the Biden administration has vowed to crack down on child labor violations in the U.S.
But largely absent from those discussions are the estimated hundreds of thousands of children who are legally working in equally hazardous conditions on farms.
House Democrats are seeking to bring those children into the conversation, with a bill being introduced Monday that would raise the minimum age for children working in farms from 12 to 14, a change sponsors say would rectify a decades-old double standard.
Under federal labor law, children must be 14 to take on all but a tiny handful of jobs, and there are limits to the hours they can work.
But due to a carveout with origins in the Jim Crow South, children can be hired to work on farms starting at age 12, for any number of hours as long as they don't miss school.
And while children are generally prohibited from doing hazardous work in other sectors, there's an exception for agriculture. At 16, children can operate heavy machinery and perform tasks at any height while working on a farm without any protections against falling, unlike in other industries.
The Children's Act for Responsible Employment and Farm Safety would do away with the double standard, by raising the minimum ages for agricultural work to match all other occupations.
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