2023-07-05 17:15:23
How the world’s richest country is loosening child labor laws
July 5, 2023
In the richest country in the world, child labor is becoming a more frequent reality — and not always contrary to the law.
The United States is facing a wave of illegal child labor — in 2022, nearly 4,000 children were found by federal inspectors to be working illegally.
This is the highest peak recorded in the US Department of Labor’s historical series, available from 2013, when inspection found 1,400 minors in this situation.
But not only that. A survey released at the end of May by the Economic Policy Institute showed that, in the last two years, at least 14 of the 50 US states have discussed — and eight of them have already approved — local laws that reduce barriers to child labor.
The BBC News Brasil correspondent in Washington Mariana Sanches explains why this portrait, which marks the Industrial Revolution, is back to reality and in an often legal way.
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