Key takeaways:

• So far this year, at least 13 states have introduced bills weakening child labor protections, and four have enacted them.
• Meanwhile, only three states have introduced bills to strengthen standards in 2026, compared with 15 in 2025.
• Industry-backed attacks on child labor standards have followed four troubling trends: 1) lowering minimum wages for teen workers; 2) weaponizing “youth apprenticeships”; 3) eliminating youth permits; and 4) weakening safeguards for teen child care workers.
• The Trump administration has undermined federal enforcement of child labor standards, even amid rising violations.
• Oregon enshrined current federal child labor standards into state law, offering a replicable model for states to hold the line against potential federal rollbacks.

Many state lawmakers took encouraging steps in 2023 and 2024 to strengthen their child labor standards—in response to high-profile reporting of widespread child labor violations across the U.S. and simultaneous efforts to weaken state child labor standards in the wake of COVID-19. But trends in 2026 suggest that this momentum may be waning despite continued increases in child labor violations. Meanwhile, opponents of strong child labor standards have continued to erode state standards and—in effect—chip away at the basis for federal standards, which have also come under threat.

In fiscal year 2025, more cases of federal child labor violations were uncovered than during any other year since the Great Recession, and hazardous work violations ticked up again after declining in the year prior (see Figure A). The rate of young worker deaths nearly doubled between 2020 and 2024, and at least one minor was killed on the job in the past year. At the same time, enforcement of federal child labor standards appears to have diminished under the Trump administration, which has proposed weakening existing standards. Since Trump was inaugurated in January 2025, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD) has published news releases about only three child labor enforcement actions. In the last year of the Biden administration, WHD published news releases about 26 cases.

Figure A

Amid this growing child labor crisis, a few states are taking necessary action to shore up or strengthen standards, but in far too many states industry-backed attacks are continuing to succeed in rolling back child labor laws.

Oregon enshrined current federal standards into state law, a model other states can emulate

The 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) sets guidelines for the hours and nonhazardous jobs for which employers can hire minors. It sets a floor above which states can adopt and enforce their own stronger standards, but where state standards are weaker, federal law applies. Oregon, the only state to pass a bill strengthening child labor standards so far this year, enacted a law that enshrines into state law FLSA work hours for minors as of January 2026. Prior to the change, Oregon law followed federal hours guidelines for 14- and 15-year-olds,1 but had prevented the adoption of any state guidelines more restrictive than those in federal law (FLSA). The new law locks in current standards and guards against potential future erosion of federal standards, stipulating that Oregon’s minor work hours rules must be no less restrictive than FLSA standards as of January 1, 2026, and giving the state freedom to implement its own higher standards for minor work hours if needed in the future. Other states can propose legislation that enshrines federal child labor standards into state law and can go further by establishing standards that improve upon the existing federal floor.

Three other states proposed bills to strengthen existing standards

In 2026, Maryland, New Jersey, and New York lawmakers also made progress on bills to strengthen state child labor standards, but none have been enacted as of this publication. A 2025 New York bill mandating that minor workers receive information on their workplace rights in order to receive work authorization passed the Senate in March; a New Jersey bill proposes establishing minimum penalties and increasing penalties for certain child labor violations; and a Maryland bill establishing civil penalties and preventing the executive branch from seeking waivers from the FLSA passed the House but was not taken up by the Senate. The Maryland bill’s provision prohibiting FLSA waivers was likely a response to a proposal in Project 2025 that would allow states to opt out of certain FLSA provisions, which would erode workers’ right to federal minimum wage and overtime protections. Next year, lawmakers should recommit to advancing stronger state standards, especially given the distinct possibility that federal standards will come under threat.

Over a dozen state legislatures attempted to roll back child labor standards this year

So far in 2026, at least 13 states have introduced bills that weaken child labor protections, and four have enacted them (see Table 1). In contrast, only three states have introduced bills to strengthen child labor protections in 2026, and only one has enacted such legislation.2 For comparison, 15 states introduced bills to strengthen child labor standards in 2025.

Table 1

Proposals to erode existing standards this year included: weakening protections from hazardous work; implementing or expanding minimum wage exemptions for minors; extending the number of hours employers can schedule minors to work; eliminating the state’s youth employment documentation system; and lowering minimum age requirements for workers in child care centers (see Table 1). Four particularly troubling patterns have emerged in legislation attempting to weaken child labor standards across multiple states:

1. Attempts to lower the minimum wage for teen workers;
2. Attempts to use state legislation on “youth apprenticeship” or “work-based learning” programs as a vehicle for weakening state child labor standards;
3. Elimination of youth work permits or other systems that ensure the documentation of minor employment; and
4. Attempts to lower or remove safety standards and staffing ratios for teen workers in child care facilities.

Lawmakers continued to propose excluding teen workers from voter-approved state minimum wage increases

As in previous years, state lawmakers continued to advance proposals that would subject minor workers to lower minimum wages than adults, particularly in states where successful ballot measures recently increased the state minimum wage. Florida, Missouri, and Nebraska voters approved ballot measures in recent years that increased the state minimum wage to $15 an hour (Florida’s minimum wage will increase from $14 to $15 in September). Legislators in the same three states are now attempting to exclude minor workers from these higher minimum wages.

Florida lawmakers reintroduced a bill to allow minors in work-based learning programs to “opt out” of receiving the constitutionally-mandated state minimum wage; Missouri lawmakers proposed paying minors nearly $3 less than the state’s new $15 minimum wage; and Nebraska lawmakers successfully enacted a bill that increased the state’s temporary youth training wage but also implemented a permanent subminimum wage for 14- and 15-year-olds. Such proposals undermine the stated goals of lawmakers to boost youth employment, address the “labor shortage,” and allow teens to earn for their futures. Youth subminimum wages do not benefit young people and erode the wage floor, depressing wages for all workers—teens and adults alike.

States continued a troubling trend of using unregulated state “youth apprenticeship” programs to roll back child labor protections

As shown in Table 1, three states proposed bills to weaken hazardous work protections for minors enrolled in work-based learning programs, marking a continued trend of attempts to erode standards that ensure early career training programs provide valuable experiences and skills without unnecessarily exposing young people to hazards known to pose a high risk of illness, injury, or fatality.

In Pennsylvania, lawmakers proposed exempting minors enrolled in work-based learning programs from state child labor standards, except where such standards reflect federal law. In Virginia, lawmakers introduced legislation that would allow employers to set the standards for appropriate work in hazardous occupations, undermining existing state laws that require work-based learning programs to be accredited by the U.S. Department of Labor or state Board of Education. However, education advocates managed to neutralize the bill’s harms by removing that provision, limiting the scope of work-based learning programs to particular industries, and adding language requiring such programs to comply with federal laws prohibiting employers from exposing teens to hazardous work.

In West Virginia, lawmakers used their recently created “youth apprenticeship program” to further erode state child labor standards for all minor workers, exacerbating troubling conflicts between state and federal child labor law created by earlier state legislation. In 2024, West Virginia lawmakers established a new “youth apprenticeship program” (YAP) that appears to permit YAP-enrolled minors to be employed in any of the 17 hazardous occupations prohibited by federal law, even though federal law provides limited exemptions for apprentices and student learners for only seven of the 17 hazardous occupation orders. This year, lawmakers expanded the program by removing the requirement that hazardous work assigned to youth apprentices be “occasional and incidental” to their training. This guardrail, which originates in federal law, is meant to protect youth apprentices from being treated as adult workers in hazardous jobs and to ensure that they are assigned hazardous work very rarely and only when it is necessary to further their training.

As part of the same legislation, West Virginia lawmakers also removed from state code the list of hazardous occupations prohibited for minors under state law. As a result, working minors not covered by the FLSA will no longer have protection from being employed in the deadliest jobs, and if federal protections are unenforced or eroded as Trump’s Project 2025 agenda has threatened, all West Virginia minors working in these jobs would lack protection. Many states have their own list of state hazardous occupation orders, which may differ slightly from the federal list. Where state and federal standards differ, the more protective standard prevails. Removing the state’s list will both endanger young workers and create confusion for employers who may not realize they must still follow federal law in areas where state law has been eroded, leading to increased reputational risk and legal liability for the state’s businesses.

Several states have weakened restrictions on hazardous work while eliminating the state’s ability to identify and investigate child labor violations

The West Virginia playbook for rolling back state child labor laws represents a troubling pattern for lawmakers and advocates to continue to monitor and resist. In 2024, the state created a new work-based learning program that did not conform to federal law, then eliminated youth work permits (and replaced them with weaker age certificates, which have now also come under threat), and a year later further weakened the state’s hazardous work protections using their new work-based learning program as a vehicle.

In just the past three years, two other states—Indiana and Iowa—have both eliminated their systems for documenting youth employment while also weakening prohibitions on hazardous work for minors. In 2023, Iowa lawmakers eliminated youth work permits, weakened hazardous work protections for youth enrolled in “work-based learning” programs, and added new provisions allowing state agencies to “waive” restrictions on hazardous work that violated federal law, among a host of other changes.

And this year, Indiana lawmakers eliminated the state’s “youth employment system” for documenting minor employment after implementing the system to replace eliminated youth work permits in 2020. As a result, state agencies will have no record of teen employment—a change the legislature’s own fiscal analysts acknowledged will impede enforcement of child labor laws. Indiana’s 2026 rollback comes on the heels of numerous changes enacted in 2024 that extended work hours for minors, eliminated night work restrictions, weakened protections for hazardous work, and—though this provision was amended out of the final bill—proposed giving employers complete civil immunity for workplace fatalities of minors enrolled in work-based learning programs.

Recent research shows that youth work permits play an important role in preventing child labor violations by enhancing awareness of child labor standards, creating legal accountability, and aiding in enforcement. In 2024, Wisconsin lawmakers passed legislation eliminating work permits for minors under 16, but the governor vetoed the legislation and stated in his veto message that he objected to eliminating a process that protects youth from exploitation. This year, Wisconsin’s Department of Workforce Development uncovered more than 1,600 child labor violations by a single Burger King franchisee—the largest in the state’s history—including 593 work permit violations. Recent research has shown that states with work permit mandates have fewer child labor violations. Employers violating work permit rules are also often violating work hours and hazardous work protections.

Continued efforts to weaken protections for teen child care workers are part of a larger deregulatory agenda in the care industry

This year, for the third time since 2022, Iowa lawmakers proposed legislation to weaken standards related to teen supervision of children in child care facilities. In 2022, Iowa enacted a bill that lowered the minimum age for child care workers and increased the number of children facilities could place under the care of a single staff person. In 2024, lawmakers proposed allowing a 16-year-old to be charged with the care of four infants, seven toddlers, or 10 three-year-olds without direct supervision, but the bill failed. The bill was supported by the billionaire-founded right-wing dark money group Americans for Prosperity, which also lobbied in support of a 2023 Kansas bill to allow minors as young as 14 to care for young children and allow 16-year-olds to provide child care with no adult supervision.

In 2025, Iowa enacted additional changes through the administrative rulemaking process, allowing teenagers as young as 16 to care for children of any age in limited circumstances. And this year, lawmakers proposed allowing 15-year-olds to care for children without supervision. The 2026 Iowa bill received significant support from lobbyists representing The Family Leader and Family Leader Foundation, Iowa’s state affiliate of the Family Research Council, an anti-LGBTQ and anti-abortion hate group.

Michigan also issued new administrative rules effective April 2026 that increased child-to-staff ratios and allow 16-year-olds to care for numerous young children without supervision—in both group and family child care homes.

The push to lower the minimum age for child care providers and increase child-to-staff ratios is part of a larger industry agenda to deregulate the care economy and avoid reckoning with its true costs. This agenda—which has also involved reducing the education and experience requirements necessary for provider licensing and even using state power to block stronger local standards—has strained providers, degraded the quality of care, and led to injuries and even deaths of young children in recent years. Placing the burden of responsibility of caring for young children on teenagers who are still themselves children harms everyone while sidestepping the real issues facing our child care system: insufficient public investment to make child care affordable and to pay providers adequately.

In an era of federal retrenchment and continued state rollbacks amid rising violations, more state lawmakers should seek to strengthen standards

Though the news media has largely moved on and federal enforcement attention appears to have waned, child labor violations remain a persistent issue and may be getting worse. Fiscal year 2025 saw more child labor cases generally and more minors employed in violation of hazardous occupation orders than any year in recent memory. While some states continued advancing legislation to strengthen child labor standards in 2026, and Oregon succeeded in enacting legislation to guard against federal rollbacks, far more states focused their efforts on weakening existing standards.

Given the very real risk that aspects of FLSA child labor protections could be eliminated (or will go unenforced), all states should at a minimum lock in existing FLSA standards and ensure state capacity to enforce them. Beyond this, states have critical opportunities and responsibilities to modernize child labor standards beyond the minimal, outdated FLSA floor to ensure that minors who must work or choose to work can access safe work experiences that don’t harm their health or education.

1. Maximum of 3 hours per day, 18 hours per week when school is in session; 8 hours per day, 40 hours per week when school is not in session. See: https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/state/child-labor

2. We exclude legislation related to child influencers. At least five states have introduced bills to increased protections for children featured in video content in 2026 (AZ, MD, MO, NJ, TN), and two states (NJ, TN) have enacted such legislation.

Child labor violations have been on the rise nationally and in Indiana, and fundamental federal child labor standards have recently come under threat. There is no reason to eliminate Indiana’s simple, easy-to-use system for documenting youth employment, except to make it easier for employers to violate child labor laws and harder for investigators to find out about violations.

Lawmakers in at least five other states have introduced bills to weaken child labor standards this year. Florida, Missouri, and Nebraska lawmakers have proposed allowing employers to pay minors less than the minimum wage, with the Nebraska bill recently being signed into law. Virginia and West Virginia lawmakers proposed bills to weaken hazardous work protections for minors who participate in work-based learning programs. Advocates in Virginia and West Virginia are working to amend both bills to limit their harm and ensure these programs do not come at the expense of youth education and safety.

Bill would eliminate employer registration system that replaced Indiana’s youth work permit process

In 2020, lawmakers eliminated Indiana’s youth work permit process and replaced it with the new Youth Employment System (YES), which requires certain employers of five or more minor workers to register key details about that employment in an online database, with penalties of up to $400 for each failure to register employment of a minor. Less than five years after they were implemented, lawmakers are now seeking to eliminate these requirements through House Bill (HB) 1302. If signed into law, there will no longer be any state oversight system in place for ensuring legal, age-appropriate work for minors or for state agencies to use in investigating suspected violations.

The legislation being considered is especially concerning because Indiana lawmakers have already made some of the country’s most extreme changes to child labor protections in recent years. Lawmakers made other substantial changes to Indiana child labor law in 2020, including eliminating rest breaks for minor workers and extending maximum weekly hours for 16- and 17-year-olds.

State systems for documenting youth employment are key to preventing child labor violations

Recent research shows that requiring the documentation of youth employment—like youth work permits—play an important role in preventing child labor violations, but Indiana got rid of work permits in 2020, and now they are hoping to get rid of the system that replaced them. In an analysis of federal child labor violations between 2008 and 2020, states with work permit mandates had 13.3% fewer violation cases and 31.8% fewer minors involved in these violations. That’s because youth work permits ensure employers know the law and create a paper trail to aid in enforcement when state investigators suspect violations. According to the new study, requiring that work permits clearly state permitted working hours reduces the number of minors involved in violations by 24.0%.

Often, employers that violate mandated documentation requirements are also violating other child labor standards. For example, a recent audit of a major Burger King franchisee in Wisconsin found over 1,600 child labor violations affecting nearly 1,400 young workers, the largest in the state’s history. In addition to employing minors without a work permit, violations included failing to provide mandated rest breaks, employing minors beyond permissible working hours, and failing to pay overtime.

Sadly, lawmakers’ desire to eliminate the YES system may be precisely because the system has been working as intended. Last year, the Indiana DOL assessed over $250,000 in penalties on employers that failed to register youth employment. Indiana’s youth employment registration system allowed investigators to identify employers out of compliance with the registration law and may have played a role in deterring future, more serious violations.

As violations increase, lawmakers should seek to strengthen—not weaken—youth employment standards

Child labor violations have risen significantly in recent years across the U.S. and in Indiana, where a 2025 IndyStar analysis found an uptick in violations in recent years, particularly driven by instances of illegal hazardous child labor and illegal employment of children under age 14. According to state fiscal analysts who assessed HB 1302’s impact, the change “will likely reduce the efficiency of on-site employer inspections for compliance with child labor laws.” In other words, the legislature’s own analysts acknowledge that this bill will make it harder to protect Indiana children from illegal and potentially dangerous, exploitative, and abusive employment conditions.

There is no rationale for eliminating basic documentation requirements that prevent child labor violations and aid in enforcement, except to make it easier for unscrupulous employers to get away with breaking the laws that keep kids safe on the job. Coming on the heels of multiple bills that weakened Indiana’s child labor standards in the past few years, HB 1302 represents another shameful step backward for the state. But it is not too late for Indiana to reverse course. If the bill is sent to the governor, Indiana Governor Mike Braun can break with his party to veto the bill, just like Ohio Republican Governor Mike DeWine did when he vetoed a bill to extend working hours for minors late last year. At a time when federal child labor standards are under threat, state lawmakers have an opportunity and responsibility to resist efforts to weaken child labor protections and, instead, consider any of the numerous, proven options to strengthen them.

Amid increased child labor violations, youth work permit systems have been under attack in some states

In recent years, child labor violations have been on the rise across the country. At the same time, lawmakers in many states have proposed bills to reverse long-standing state child labor standards that prohibit employers from exposing youth under 18 to hazardous jobs or overly long work hours that interfere with their health and well-being. Youth work permits—which many states have historically required—have been a repeated target of this coordinated, industry-backed campaign to weaken child labor laws. Such permits typically require employers to outline the potential hours and work duties for a minor worker, as well as parental approval and verification that the minor is attending school.

Since 2021, lawmakers in at least nine states have proposed weakening or eliminating youth work permit systems, and four have enacted such legislation (Alabama, Arkansas, Iowa, and West Virginia). Most recently, in 2025, Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy encouraged the legislature to pass a bill that would have eliminated the requirement that minors receive individual authorization to work (and replaced it with a general authorization for employers to hire minors). And in West Virginia, lawmakers successfully eliminated youth work permits for 14- and 15-year-olds and replaced them with age certificates following a two-year push by the right-wing think tank Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA). FGA has played a leading role in efforts to eliminate youth work permits in Arkansas, Iowa, Missouri, and Wisconsin.

New research explains how and why youth work permits are so effective

Proponents of eliminating youth work permits have often argued that work permits are not necessary, are overly burdensome for employers, or that they infringe on parents’ right to decide whether, where, and how long their child should work. In reality, work permits are a proven, effective policy for ensuring that young teens can enter the workforce safely by making sure employers are aware of child labor laws and that parents are fully informed about the conditions of a proposed job.

A year ago, we reported on research providing new quantitative evidence that work permits help prevent federal child labor violations. Using comprehensive data from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division from 2008 to 2020, researchers at the University of Maryland and Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, found that states requiring employment certificates saw 13.3% fewer violation cases and 31.8% fewer minors involved in these violations.1 States with work permits also saw 34.9% lower civil penalties per minor, indicating reduced severity of violations that do occur.

New findings from the same research team now reveal two key mechanisms that explain how work permits provide this protection: 1) work permits create a documentary paper trail that increases employers’ accountability and aids government enforcers, and 2) work permits improve compliance with state and federal standards by increasing employers’ awareness of child labor laws. According to the new analysis, requiring verification of parental consent for a minor to work and providing education to employers about hours restrictions are the main features that make work permits effective. State lawmakers can use the new findings to strengthen and modernize their youth work permit systems, using strategies proven to reduce violations and protect youth well-being.

Work permits create legal accountability and enable effective enforcement

Researchers found that work permits enable more effective enforcement of child labor standards by creating a record that employers were informed of child labor standards, therefore making it harder for employers to claim ignorance if violations occur. By analyzing publicly available federal court records, researchers found that in states with work permit mandates, 91% of child labor cases were classified as “willful” or “repeated” violations. These more serious classifications carry higher penalties. In contrast, only 33% of cases in states without work permit mandates received these classifications.

This finding implies that when employers hiring teens must complete a work permit that documents the minor’s age, obtains parental consent, and acknowledges legal requirements, they are made aware of child labor standards and can fully comply with state and federal laws. Work permits also enhance the investigatory capacity of federal enforcement agencies by providing basic documentation about youth employment that investigators can scrutinize when they suspect violations of federal law, as well as bolstering their ability to take effective action if an employer violates the law despite having been informed.

Work permits enhance awareness of specific child labor standards

Second, researchers found that work permits enhance awareness and monitoring of employers’ compliance with federal and state laws—but only for standards that are explicitly mentioned in the permitting process. Analyzing all relevant Department of Labor news releases detailing specific violations (118 in total) from 2020 through 2025, researchers found that work permits reduce precisely the types of violations that the permit forms explicitly warn employers are prohibited under federal law. As Figure A highlights, states with work permits showed: 1) fewer hours violations—minors working beyond federally permitted hours (e.g., federal law limits 14–15 year-olds to 18 hours per week during school weeks); 2) fewer age-limit violations—employment of children below minimum working age (typically 14 for nonagricultural work); and 3) fewer recordkeeping violations—failure to maintain required documentation such as age verification. On the other hand, hazardous occupation violations remained similar across both types of states. Analysis of employment certificate forms from all 38 states with mandates reveals why: While 100% mention age requirements and 60% mention work hours restrictions, most forms do not enumerate the specific hazardous occupations prohibited under federal law.

Figure A

Parental consent and hour limits provide strongest protection

The researchers also examined which features make permits most effective. Figure B highlights the findings. Examining employment certificate forms from 37 of the 38 states that require them (Mississippi’s form was not publicly available), researchers found that parental consent requirements had the strongest protective effect, reducing violations by 13.9% and case severity by 38.7% (measured by civil penalties assessed). Work hours documentation—in which the certificate must record the minor’s planned work schedule (typically completed by employers, though responsibilities vary by state)—also proved effective, reducing the number of minors involved in violations by 24.0%. In contrast, more passive requirements, such as employer signatures and job description requirements, showed lesser independent effects. This suggests that active oversight mechanisms, particularly parental involvement and explicit requirements to record work schedules to show compliance with legal guidelines on hours of work, drive the protective benefits. That these two features are particularly impactful provides further evidence that requiring employer documentation on work permits and verifying parental consent make work permits effective.

Figure B

Work permits prevent violations. State lawmakers should strengthen, not eliminate them.

Understanding how work permits prevent violations points to ways for states to further increase their effectiveness. The researchers identified four best practices lawmakers should consider:

• Strengthen parental consent requirements: Youth work permit applications should require parental signature and include a process for parents to revoke their consent in the future. 
• Strengthen requirements to outline the specific duties of the potential job: Youth work permit applications should require employers to document specific duties of the potential job and include the minor’s planned work schedule. 
• Include information about hazardous occupation restrictions on permit forms: Youth work permit applications should include a list of prohibited jobs for minors under state and federal law and affirm the employer’s commitment not to employ a minor for hazardous tasks and occupations.
• Clearly state hour limits: Youth work permit applications should include permitted daily and weekly hours and prohibitions on overnight work under both state and federal law. These forms should also clearly state that, where there are discrepancies between state and federal law, the more protective law applies.

These new insights into how youth work permits function reinforce the researchers’ original conclusion: Youth work permits are a proven method for reducing child labor violations. And they show that the permitting process can be a highly effective vehicle for educating employers, teen workers, and parents about legal rights and protections. States with existing work permit systems can strengthen them to enhance their protective effects—as Illinois, Michigan, and Washington have done—and states that do not have work permit requirements should take immediate steps to implement or reinstate them.

1. Throughout this report, the terms “work permits” and “employment certificates” are used interchangeably. Age certificates are distinct and more limited; they typically verify age but do not include the same safeguards.

DeWine’s decision reflects conclusions backed up by decades of research and public policy experience. As his veto message emphasizes, existing work hour guidelines—providing young teens (under 16) opportunities to gain work experience “after school up to 7 p.m.”—have been “in place, across this country, for many years” and have “served us well” and “effectively balanced the importance of 14- and 15-year-old children learning to work, with the importance of them having time to study.”

If enacted, the Ohio bill in question (SB 50) would have allowed longer, later work hours—up to 9 p.m. on school nights for children as young as 14—that can interfere with young teens’ education, sleep, health, and development. Studies have consistently shown that intensive work at a young age is associated with poor academic outcomes; longer hours raise the risk of work-related illness and injury; and work later into the night exacerbates sleep deprivation that in turn can interfere with teens’ education and well-being. Allowing employers to schedule young teens to work until 9 p.m. also increases the likelihood of nighttime driving for new drivers (minors can be permitted to drive at age 15.5 in Ohio), an additional risk factor for accidents. Motor vehicle crashes are already the leading cause of death for teens and young adults, who are three times more likely to die in a car accident than adults over 20. For all these reasons, federal law limits the maximum number of working hours for young teens to three hours per night or 18 hours a week and prohibits work past 7 p.m. on school days.

At a moment when the U.S. faces a reemerging crisis of rising child labor violations and when Ohio is taking steps to decrease teen driving fatalities, DeWine’s veto is a sensible, informed response to harmful legislation. It also marks a hopeful next stage in ongoing state-level struggles to maintain and strengthen essential child labor protections in the face of a coordinated, industry-backed campaign to weaken child labor standards—first at the state level, and eventually nationwide.

Veto spares Ohio employers from confusing conflict between state and federal law, while threats to erode federal child labor standards still loom

Governor DeWine also appears to have taken to heart and, wisely, acted on lessons his fellow policymakers learned the hard way in other states where similar legislation has been proposed or enacted in recent years.

Ohio’s SB 50 would have allowed employers to schedule 14–15-year-olds to work until 9 p.m. on school days, two hours later than allowed under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Because states can legislate above FLSA standards but not below, the proposed new state standards would have conflicted directly with federal law, sowing confusion for parents, teens, and employers, and putting employers at risk of being charged with federal child labor violations if they chose to follow weaker state guidelines.

This exact scenario played out recently in Iowa when, despite strong warnings from labor advocates and U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) officials, Governor Kim Reynolds signed a 2023 bill that included multiple provisions conflicting with federal child labor law. Once the Iowa bill went into effect, information from state agencies and employer groups (including the Iowa Restaurant Association) sowed confusion by suggesting that employers could now abide by weaker new state standards. Then, after a number of restaurants faced federal child labor investigations and fines for violating the FLSA in 2024, Governor Reynolds publicly defended the illegal employer practices—in part with (unsubstantiated) claims that the businesses were being unfairly targeted by the DOL, and by calling on the federal government to stop enforcing existing child labor laws and instead “look to Iowa as an example” of how to handle child labor.

A concurrent resolution accompanying the Ohio bill, which was adopted by both chambers, similarly called on Congress to weaken the FLSA by adopting Ohio’s proposal for longer school-night hours for young teens as the new federal standard. By repeatedly proposing—and in some cases implementing—standards that conflict with federal law, legislators in states like Iowa and Ohio have attempted to chip away at the already fragile federal floor for workplace protections. Federal child labor standards are also under direct threat. The Project 2025 policy agenda closely followed by the Trump administration recommends lifting prohibitions on hazardous child labor and allowing states to opt out of the FLSA entirely.

In light of continuing threats, states have a critical role to play in defending and strengthening child labor standards

Ohio’s SB 50 and its 2023 predecessor were both sponsored by the same state senator with the support of industry groups whose members would benefit from weaker child labor laws—the Ohio Restaurant and Hospitality Alliance, National Federation of Independent Business in Ohio, and the Pickerington Chamber of Commerce—as well as Americans for Prosperity, a right-wing, billionaire-backed dark money group that has coordinated state-by-state legislative campaigns to weaken child labor laws across the country, often alongside the right-wing think tank Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA).

Governor DeWine now joins a growing number of governors and state legislators who have stood up in opposition to these attacks. For example, Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers vetoed an FGA-sponsored bill last year that would have eliminated the state’s effective, commonsense youth work permit system. Some have even gone further to propose or support legislation that strengthens state child labor standards, with lawmakers in more than a dozen states proposing legislation or administrative rules to protect minors from hazardous or exploitative work, deter child labor violations, and increase accountability for law-breaking employers.

Governor DeWine, after hearing the voices of numerous parents, educators, health care, and driving safety experts, concluded that a veto of SB 50 was “in the public interest.” Given evidence that industry campaigns to weaken child labor laws are continuing (and the very real risk that aspects of federal child labor protections could face similar threats from the same forces), more states should pursue critical opportunities and responsibilities in 2026 to—at the very least—defend the long-standing, minimal floor set by the FLSA and, wherever possible, to strengthen state standards that ensure young teens who work can do so without damaging their health or education.

Colorado Department of Labor and Employment
707 17th Street, Suite 150
Denver, CO 80202-3660

RE: Colorado Youth Employment Standards Rules, 7 CCR 1103-20

Dear members of the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment,

The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) submits this comment in response to the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment (CDLE) proposed rule (7 CCR 1103-20) regarding the Colorado Youth Employment Opportunity Act (CYEOA) C.R.S. § 8-12-101, et seq.

EPI is a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank working for nearly 40 years to counter rising inequality; low wages and weak benefits for working people; slower economic growth; unacceptable employment conditions; and a widening racial wage gap. We intentionally center low- and middle-income working families in economic policy discussions at the federal, state, and local levels as we fight for a world where every worker has access to a good job with fair pay, affordable health care, retirement security, and a union.

EPI is a nationally recognized expert on U.S. federal and state child labor standards and has been closely following state legislative and administrative rulemaking efforts regarding child labor for the past three years. While many states have, unfortunately, sought to weaken child labor protections, other states—including Colorado—have recognized that weak, outdated child labor laws have contributed to the ongoing U.S. child labor crisis, and have responded by strengthening and modernizing state protections for minors who work.

We applaud CDLE’s use of its rulemaking authority to strengthen protections from hazardous work for minors and appreciate the opportunity to submit recommendations to CDLE’s proposed rule on this topic. EPI supports the proposed rule and recommends additional amendments to further clarify that minors are not employed in occupations currently prohibited by federal regulations and to strengthen guidance for employers seeking to hire minors for hazardous work. 

We would also encourage future rulemaking on permitted hours of employment for minors. Given that state law permits employment beyond the maximum hours stipulated under federal law, we encourage the agency to consider rulemaking to align the interpretation of permitted hours under the CYEOA with federal law.

CDLE has broad authority to ensure hazardous work is in accordance with federal law

The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) governs minimum federal child labor standards, including by prohibiting minors from being employed in certain hazardous occupations or using certain dangerous tools and equipment associated with an increased risk of injury or death. Under the rulemaking authority granted by the FLSA, the U.S. Department of Labor (U.S. DOL) has enumerated 17 occupations that are prohibited for all minors, as well as a longer list of prohibited occupations for minors under 16 and a list of permitted occupations for minors under 16 (if an occupation is not explicitly permitted, it is prohibited by default).

The federal hazardous occupation orders (HOs) should be considered the federal floor for hazardous work protections that states should aim to exceed. However, the CYEOA should be interpreted in congruence with federal requirements to resolve confusion between state and federal law. For example, C.R.S. § 8-12-108 permits minors as young as 14 to work in manufacturing, messenger service, warehousing and storage, and construction, but federal law prohibits these occupations for all minors under 18. Additionally, several federal HOs are missing from C.R.S. § 8-12-110, such as operating a motor vehicle (HO 2), forest firefighting (HO 4), and operating hoisting apparatuses (HO 7) .

Pursuant to subsection (3) of C.R.S. § 8-12-110, CDLE “shall promulgate regulations, in accordance with section 24-4-103, C.R.S., to define the occupations prohibited under this section and to prescribe what types of equipment shall be required to make an occupation nonhazardous for minors.” Given this broad authority, CDLE can define hazardous occupations as “any occupation prohibited for minors under federal law” to effectively bring the state’s hazardous occupation orders in line with federal law. Additionally, CDLE should clarify that any occupation defined as hazardous under current federal law is prohibited under state law, effectively removing from C.R.S. § 8-12-106 through C.R.S. § 8-12-110 those occupations which are currently permitted under state law (in conflict with federal law). Wherever the FLSA is cited, it should be specified that the state will recognize current (2025) federal law unless the FLSA is strengthened. If FLSA standards are weakened or eliminated, Colorado should continue to prohibit the employment of minors in occupations under the 2025 federal standards.

CDLE’s proposed rule satisfactorily addresses many of these issues and the agency’s explanation of permitted hazardous employment under the CYEOA will reduce the likelihood that minors will be employed in jobs prohibited under federal law. However, we suggest several amendments to Sections 9 and 10 of the proposed rule to strengthen and clarify this commitment. This added clarity will be helpful for employers in their efforts to comply with state and federal laws and keep minors safe on the job.

Section 9: Clarifying the applicability of 2025 federal child labor regulations

Section 9.1 states that “Minors may only be employed as permitted by C.R.S. § 8-12-106 to -109 and these Rules” and that “for occupations not specifically permitted by the CYEOA or identified in Division rules or guidance … employers may submit an exemption request.” EPI suggests that CDLE amend this language to clarify that any occupation not specifically permitted is prohibited unless the employer demonstrates otherwise via the exemption request process. This language would mirror U.S. DOL’s published guidance on permitted occupations for 14- and 15-year-olds: “what is not permitted is prohibited.”

Section 9.2.6 states that the use of power-driven lawn equipment is prohibited for minors except under certain conditions, including that the minor is trained, that the equipment’s use complies with federal OSHA standards and state rules, and that the minor does not perform maintenance or repair of the equipment. However, since federal law generally prohibits the operation of any power machinery for 14- and 15-year-olds, we suggest that CDLE amend its proposed rule to include in subpart B “The power-driven equipment and its use comply with applicable Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) standards, including 29 C.F.R. §§ 1910.242-243, and applicable Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) regulations, including 29 CFR §§ 570.33.”

Similarly, EPI recommends that CDLE add a similar reminder to Section 9.4 and Sections 9.5. Since federal law prohibits minors under 14 from being employed in most jobs, it bears repeating that many jobs that may be permitted under Colorado law will remain prohibited for younger minors under federal law.  

Section 10: Strengthening guidance for employers seeking to hire minors for hazardous work

EPI supports the appropriate use of work-based learning programs that create pathways for young workers to access good quality, union jobs in the trades. However, state lawmakers and agencies must take great caution to ensure the safety and well-being of minors who participate in these programs. Under federal law, there are narrow exemptions from seven of the 17 federal HOs for student learners and apprentices enrolled in a bona fide registered apprenticeship program. However, as discussed in the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health’s 2002 recommendations, at least four occupations pose risks to minors that cannot be sufficiently mitigated to justify continued exemptions: meatpacking, roofing, excavation, and the use of power-driven saws.

Additionally, in recent years, several states have sought to expand these exemptions for hazardous work beyond what is permitted under federal law and/or for programs not regulated by U.S. DOL. For example, Iowa enacted a law in 2023 to allow 14–15-year-olds enrolled in work-based learning programs to conduct hazardous work in industrial laundries and assembly work prohibited under federal law. In 2024, West Virginia created a new youth apprenticeship program that exempts minors from all of the state’s hazardous occupation orders (in violation of federal law) and Oklahoma created a new apprenticeship program for youth in the electrical trades that does not require approval from the state agency (electrical work is not covered under any federal HO).

It is in this context of eroding hazardous work protections for students enrolled in work-based learning programs and the creation of unregistered apprenticeship programs in occupations that are inherently dangerous that EPI recommends implementing strong guardrails for minors employed to do hazardous work though work-based learning programs and clear expectations for the employers that seek these exemptions. Specifically, EPI recommends the following changes:

• 10.1.1: Requests for exemptions should be limited to minors ages 16 and older; documentation demonstrating that the exemption is in the best interest of the child must be submitted by the employer;
• 10.1.3: This list should also include conditions for hazardous employment by registered apprentices and student learners enumerated in federal child labor standards 29 CFR 570.50 (2025);
• 10.2: Increase the age from 14 to 16; and
• 10.2.1 through 10.2.4: The employer should be required to demonstrate that hazardous employment is in the best interest of the child regardless of whether the employment is through an established, accredited program.

Definitions

“Qualifying adult”: We suggest removing this term from the definitions list because it problematically conflates the responsibilities of a parent/guardian with those of an employer. Section 9.2.2 can simply use the term “adult” or “parent/guardian,” but Sections 9.4.2 and 9.5 should specify that in the limited circumstances where this approach is warranted, the employer must be close by or reachable by phone. Otherwise, the regulation effectively burdens parents with the responsibility of enforcing the state’s child labor standards.

“Include”: This definition is not used consistently throughout the proposed rule and should be removed.

Conclusion

By enacting legislation to increase penalties for child labor violations and expand opportunities for justice for victims of child labor, the state of Colorado has demonstrated its commitment to strengthening labor standards for working minors. Now, the state labor agency has an opportunity to solidify that commitment through the rulemaking process. We commend CDLE for proposing a strong rule regarding hazardous work in the CYEOA and support the proposed rule. We encourage CDLE to use its full authority in the CYEOA to ensure that minors are employed in accordance with federal law and protected from workplace hazards, and that the burden of proving a job is safe and appropriate for a minor be placed on the employers that seek exemptions from these protections.

Sincerely,

Nina Mast
Policy and Economic Analyst
Economic Policy Institute

Amid this crisis, states have urgent obligations to shore up basic protections. The crisis also presents states with big opportunities to remedy long-standing weaknesses and exclusions in outdated labor laws and take leadership in addressing major economic challenges like wage suppression, growing income inequality, racial and gender wage gaps, and declining job quality.

Below we summarize some of the actions states have taken so far in 2025 to raise wages, prevent harmful child labor, combat wage theft and worker misclassification, guarantee the right to unionize, expand paid leave, protect worker health and safety, and improve unemployment insurance. These examples from across the country show how state policymakers can assume more expansive, effective roles in enacting and enforcing key worker rights and protections.

Wages

The federal minimum wage—now officially a poverty wage—is just $7.25 per hour and has not increased since 2009. Moreover, federal law continues to allow employers to pay subminimum wages to tipped workers, workers with disabilities, youth under 18, and others, while excluding certain occupations (e.g., farmworkers) from coverage. Resulting wage suppression hurts all workers and is particularly harmful to Black workers and other workers of color. In the absence of federal action, states continue to lead important progress on raising the minimum wage to levels that address inflation and regional costs of living; eliminating subminimum wages; and closing loopholes that deny some groups of workers minimum wage coverage.

This year Rhode Island enacted legislation (H5029) to progressively raise the minimum wage to $17 by 2027. Virginia also passed legislation to increase the minimum wage to $17 by 2027, but it was ultimately vetoed by Governor Youngkin.

Following a years-long campaign, Maine expanded its state minimum wage law to include farmworkers who are otherwise excluded from most federal labor protections. (Maine legislators also passed related legislation [LD 588] to extend anti-retaliation protections to farmworkers, but it was vetoed by Governor Mills). And this year, Georgia joined 26 states that have taken action to prohibit or disincentivize paying subminimum wages to workers with disabilities. Georgia’s new law (SB 55) will phase out the disability subminimum wage by 2027.

Ongoing efforts to eliminate the tipped minimum wage met with setbacks in D.C., Michigan, and Colorado:

• In Washington, D.C.—where voters overwhelmingly supported measures to phase out the tipped minimum wage in both 2018 and 2022—the City Council voted to delay planned 2025 increases, extend the timeline for phasing in future increases to seven years, and eventually cap the tipped minimum wage at 75% of the minimum wage.
• Seven years after Michigan legislators blocked voters from weighing in on a highly popular ballot measure that would have phased out the tipped minimum wage, and a year after the Michigan Supreme Court reinstated the ballot measure’s benefits for low-wage workers, state legislators once again acted against voters’ wishes with compromise legislation (SB 8) that accelerates the schedule of minimum wage increases but maintains the state’s tipped subminimum wage.
• In response to intense lobbying from the restaurant industry, Colorado changed its law to allow localities with higher minimum wage rates to maintain relatively lower tipped minimum wages. Previously, Colorado cities with higher minimum wages were required to maintain a tipped minimum of $3.02 less than the local minimum wage (equivalent to the current $3.02 gap between the state tipped and full minimum wage). The new law allows for gaps larger than $3.02 between a local tipped and full minimum wage (providing that the local tipped minimum remains at least equivalent to the state tipped minimum). This compromise replaced an even worse bill that would have required all localities to lower their tipped minimum wage to match the state tipped minimum.

State prevailing wage standards—which require contractors on public works projects to pay workers at least the local median wage for a given type of work—help ensure that public investments yield good jobs with fair, equitable pay and benefits. This year, New Jersey strengthened its prevailing wage law by expanding prohibitions on public contracts with firms that have previously failed to pay prevailing wage. Oregon enacted HB 2688, extending prevailing wage requirements to some off-site manufacturing. A bill extending the state’s prevailing wage requirement to contractors working on underground infrastructure works passed in Virginia but was vetoed by Governor Youngkin.

Child labor

Despite ongoing federal- and state-level attempts to erode the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, advocates in several states succeeded in blocking new threats to weaken child labor protections. For example, EARN network affiliate Florida Policy Institute helped block two related bills (HB 1225 and SB 918) that would have allowed employers to schedule some 14- and 15-year-olds and all 16- and 17-year-olds for unlimited hours of work without breaks. Florida advocates also stopped passage of a bill (SB 676) that threatened to exempt student internships and work-study programs from the state minimum wage.

Continuing a growing trend, several states passed proactive legislation to shore up child labor protections. New York’s budget bill drastically increases civil penalties and adds criminal homicide charges for employers who cause the death of a child due to negligence on the job, while Washington passed legislation (HB 1644) increasing penalties for child labor violations, limiting an employer’s ability to hire minors following repeated violations, and strengthening state agency oversight of employers seeking permits to supervise student learning that involves potentially hazardous work.

Unfortunately, West Virginia eliminated their youth work permit system for 14–15-year-olds and replaced it with a mandatory age certification process which transfers sole approval authority and recordkeeping responsibilities from schools to the state labor division. Though an improvement on a previous bill, this law means school officials will no longer have the authority to reject work arrangements they believe are not in a student’s best interest.

Preventing wage theft and worker misclassification

State roles in enforcing strong wage payment standards are more important than ever at a moment when the Trump administration is rolling back federal wage and hour standards and the number of federal Department of Labor (DOL) Wage and Hour Division investigators is already at an all-time low. This year, several states passed legislation to prevent wage theft:

• Building on an impressive multi-year initiative to strengthen state labor standards enforcement, Oregon’s SB 426 strengthens protections for construction workers by holding both project owners and contractors liable for unpaid wages. Oregon also passed HB 5015 to strengthen and increase funding for the state agency responsible for enforcing standards, the Bureau of Labor and Industries.
• Minnesota continued progress on combating wage theft with an amendment to existing laws that gives county attorneys authority to subpoena records of employers in wage theft investigations.
• Colorado enacted a new version of legislation (HB 1001) previously vetoed by Governor Polis, that will now expand state agency authority to penalize employers who commit wage theft and publicize violations on a state agency website.
• New York’s budget bill gives the state’s DOL more power to enforce wage theft laws, including the ability to seize a violator’s financial assets following an unpaid wage theft judgment.

Growing recognition of the costs of worker misclassification continued to generate important state policy advances in 2025. Employers who illegally misclassify employees as “independent contractors” skirt payroll tax, unemployment, and workers’ compensation payments, while depriving workers of fundamental workplace rights and increasing the likelihood of wage theft. 

• Though ultimately vetoed by the governor, Virginia lawmakers passed HB2561, which would have extended the timeframe for filing wage and misclassification claims and held employers liable for damages awarded in lawsuits.
• In Delaware, a bill currently awaiting the governor’s signature would hold contractors liable when their subcontractors misclassify workers and allow the state’s DOL to enforce compliance.

Rights to unionize and collectively bargain

Several states acted this year to strengthen workers’ rights to organize and bargain or to hold the line against new attacks on the right to unionize. State policies are especially critical for determining whether workers have the freedom to form unions at a moment when the Trump administration is hobbling the federal government’s ability to adjudicate labor law violations, attacking union rights of federal employees, and eliminating capacities to mediate contract negotiations. Even prior to these escalating attacks, millions of workers interested in unionizing faced daunting obstacles to organizing under weak, outdated federal laws that employers routinely violate.

This year, Washington (SB 5041) and Oregon (SB 916) took steps to encourage fairer labor negotiations by extending eligibility for unemployment insurance to striking workers. Connecticut legislation to do the same passed for the second year in a row but was again vetoed by Governor Lamont. Rhode Island (SB 126) joined the now 13 states protecting employees’ freedom to opt out of employer-sponsored “captive audience” meetings on political or religious matters unrelated to work duties. Such mandatory meetings are frequently used by employers to communicate anti-union views amid highly coercive, retaliatory campaigns to block workers from unionizing.

Several states took affirmative steps to safeguard collective bargaining rights for groups of workers otherwise excluded from federal coverage, or to resist attempts to limit workers’ collective bargaining rights with so-called right-to-work (RTW) laws. Vermont legislators approved placing a constitutional amendment guaranteeing collective bargaining rights on the ballot in 2026. Two other New England states—New Hampshire and Maine—rejected unpopular proposals to pass RTW legislation.

Colorado legislators passed the Worker Protection Act in an attempt to reverse an 80-year-old law that imposes de facto RTW conditions in the state. Unlike any other state, Colorado requires unionizing private-sector workers to undergo a state-sanctioned “second election” in order to gain full bargaining rights. Despite passage by large margins and a robust campaign demonstrating economic benefits of strengthening unions, the Worker Protection Act was vetoed by Governor Jared Polis.

Virginia attempted a significant expansion of collective bargaining coverage for state and local public employees (building on 2021 legislation that lifted a state ban on local government collective bargaining), but Governor Youngkin vetoed the legislation.

In Ohio, a new law curtailing freedom of speech in higher education also stripped faculty of their right to strike. In other states where legislators continued attacking rights of public employees this year, workers largely succeeded in resisting. For example, some Florida legislators attempted to make it even harder for public-sector workers to form or maintain unions, building on an already extreme anti-union law enacted in 2023. But this year, no new anti-union bills (HB 1217, HB 1387, HB 1328, SB 1766) were enacted in Florida. Most notably, after Utah passed unpopular legislation banning public-sector collective bargaining, over 300,000 Utahns successfully petitioned for a ballot measure to repeal the ban. The question will now go before voters in 2026.

Paid leave

Fed up with decades of lawmakers’ failure to enact paid leave legislation, voters approved paid sick leave ballot measures by wide margins in Alaska, Nebraska, and Missouri last November. All three of these ballot measures then came under fire during 2025 legislative sessions. Republican-majority legislatures repealed the paid sick leave portion of Proposition A in Missouri and weakened Nebraska’s paid sick leave program with new exclusions denying coverage to seasonal agricultural workers, young workers, and those working for small businesses. Attempts to do the same in Alaska were unsuccessful, and Alaska workers have now begun to accrue paid sick leave under the new program.

Several states—including Alabama, Arkansas, and Mississippi—took small but important steps to extend paid parental leave to some public employees, continuing a multi-year trend in the South. Signaling potential for much bigger breakthroughs on paid leave in the South, Virginia legislators passed HB2531, which would have established a statewide comprehensive paid family and medical leave program, if it had not been vetoed by Governor Youngkin.

Workplace health and safety

The Trump administration’s dangerous war on workplace health and safety standards was replicated in some state legislatures this year and actively resisted in others. Two new laws in Kentucky will increase dangers workers face on the job: The first (HB 196) reduces the number of emergency medical technicians required on site at active coal mines. The second (HB 398) cripples the state’s OSHA program by prohibiting the state from enforcing existing safety laws above the federal floor, limiting who can request safety inspections, and restricting the time in which an employee can file a complaint of retaliation after reporting a safety hazard. Florida legislation (HB 6033) threatening to repeal a 1995 state law that extends rights and protections to temporary and day laborers ultimately died in the House after a fierce campaign by grassroots group Beyond the Bars. Its repeal would have left these laborers without a number of health and safety protections not guaranteed at the federal level.

Other states are taking important steps to close loopholes in federal law or to anticipate potential erosion of federal OSHA standards. Maryland established a new state OSHA program to cover public-sector workers (who are otherwise excluded from federal OSHA coverage) and 18 states proposed standards to protect workers exposed to extreme heat. Though none have passed yet in 2025, these bills signal the dire need for heat exposure regulations (which already exist in seven states) as a proposed federal OSHA heat standard currently under consideration could take years to reach approval and is at risk of being weakened or abandoned by the Trump administration.

Unemployment insurance

This year, several states passed positive expansions and improvements to their unemployment insurance (UI) systems, while others weakened theirs.

Virginia enacted two UI improvements. The first, SB 1056, increased UI benefits, while SB 1057 increased the amount of “disregarded” income people can earn from part-time jobs without reducing their benefits. VA legislators also considered—but failed to pass—a related bill that would have allowed unemployed federal contractors to qualify for unemployment insurance. Georgia enacted updates to its UI system with the goal of allowing quicker and more efficient communication with UI recipients, and legislators in Maine created an interest-free loan system to help cover lost income for public employees during government shutdowns. The North Carolina House passed an increase to UI benefits, but the bill stalled in the Senate.

Continuing a long-standing trend of attacks on already fragile unemployment insurance systems, several states further weakened UI despite vocal opposition. West Virginia and Louisiana made it harder for workers to access benefits, passing legislation to require drug tests to qualify for benefits and increasing work search requirements respectively. Louisiana’s bill also slashed overall benefit amounts. After slashing UI benefits in 2023, this year Iowa enacted SF 607, drastically lowering employers’ contribution rates and putting the state’s UI trust fund at high risk for future insolvency. Workers and advocates had to fend off many other harmful UI bills in other states. Texas’s HB 199, for example, would have indexed Texans’ maximum number of UI benefits to the statewide average unemployment rate, slashing up to 12 weeks of unemployment insurance coverage for workers and unfairly punishing rural workers. Thanks to opposition from groups including EPI’s EARN affiliate EveryTexan, this bill was killed in committee.

Conclusion

While the Trump administration’s attacks on workers and unions continue to escalate, some states are stepping in to shore up and expand workers’ rights and protections. While much more remains to be done, 2025 state legislative sessions provide powerful reminders that states can and should, at a minimum, resist threats to erode labor standards and lock in existing worker protections. The national worker rights crisis also calls for more states to push beyond minimum standards, fix gaps and exclusions in weak labor laws, ensure all workers can build power, and lay the policy foundation necessary to rebuild an economy that works for all.

The 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) sets guidelines for the hours and nonhazardous jobs for which employers can hire minors under 16. The FLSA also empowers the Secretary of Labor to prohibit all minor employment in occupations that are particularly dangerous through “hazardous occupations orders.” It covers employers that conduct at least $500,000 in annual sales or any employees engaged in interstate commerce (this coverage is interpreted broadly with respect to child labor—if a firm engages in any form of interstate commerce, its minor workers are covered). Federal law sets an important but limited and increasingly outdated floor for child labor standards. For example, federal child labor standards in agriculture are much weaker than in nonagricultural employment, hazardous occupations orders have not been updated in decades, and there are no work hours protections for minors over the age of 15 (see Table 1).

Table 1

What are the threats to federal child labor standards?

Threats to federal child labor standards include federal proposals to weaken child labor protections and ongoing state-level efforts to erode the FLSA by proposing or enacting state child labor legislation that conflicts with federal law:

• Project 2025, the anti-worker policy roadmap being implemented by the Trump administration, proposes:
  1.  Eliminating federal hazardous occupations orders, which protect minors from employment in particularly dangerous jobs, like mining and roofing; and
  2. Allowing states to obtain waivers from the FLSA—including provisions that prevent harmful forms of child labor.

• In recent years, a coordinated, industry-backed campaign to erode child labor standards has generated proposals in dozens of states to weaken or eliminate state standards exceeding the minimal federal “floor” for child labor protections. Some state lawmakers have gone even further, proposing or enacting bills that directly conflict with federal minimum standards, while stating intent to build pressure for the eventual relaxation or elimination of FLSA standards for the whole country. Common targets for these attacks on state child labor standards include:
  • Eliminating youth work permits
  • Eliminating hours of work guidelines for 16- and 17-year-olds
  • Eliminating meal or rest break requirements for minors
  • Expanding employers’ ability to hire minors for previously prohibited hazardous jobs
  • Lowering the age at which minors can serve alcohol and/or work in establishments serving alcohol
  • Establishing or expanding laws that allow employers to pay students or other youth a subminimum wage
  • Creating new exemptions from state child labor protections, for example for homeschooled youth or youth in certain occupations
  • Creating new systems—such as unregulated “internship” or “work-based learning” programs—that allow employers to skirt child labor laws or hire minors for otherwise prohibited hazardous work

By repeatedly proposing—and in some cases implementing—standards that conflict with federal law, these states are chipping away at the already fragile federal floor for workplace protections.

How can states maintain and strengthen child labor protections?

States have legal authority to establish their own child labor standards; the FLSA sets a floor above which states can adopt and enforce their own stronger standards.

States have historically played a prominent role in setting child labor standards—some states have protections in place that predate the FLSA, and many have long legislated above federal law. Other states maintain standards that generally mirror the FLSA, with few additional protections, and some states have standards that are significantly weaker than the FLSA. In many cases, a state’s standards are stronger than the FLSA in some areas and weaker in others. When a state standard is weaker than the FLSA, federal law applies. However, since only federal agencies can enforce federal laws, state laws that fall short of federal law increase the risk of federal violations while shifting the enforcement burden to already-overburdened federal agencies. Amid Trump administration attacks, federal agencies are now facing even more pronounced staffing shortages that will further limit their enforcement capacity.

In response to increasing child labor violations, many states are already taking action to strengthen state child labor standards and enforcement. Given the very real risk that aspects of FLSA child labor protections could be eliminated (or will go unenforced), all states should at a minimum lock in existing FLSA standards and ensure state capacity to enforce them. Beyond this, states have critical opportunities and responsibilities to modernize child labor standards beyond the minimal, outdated FLSA floor to ensure that minors who must work or choose to work can access safe work experiences that don’t harm their health or education. Fortunately, state lawmakers have an array of options to consider and tested legislative models to use as a guide.

Step I: Update state statutes to lock in current federal protections.

State standards should be at least as strong as those in the FLSA. Ensuring that state standards mirror FLSA minimums protects both employers and children from the risks and confusion that arise when state standards contradict federal law. For example, after a Utah employer was fined for violating federal child labor law for incorrectly following state child labor guidelines that were weaker than FLSA standards, Utah enacted a bill to align state guidelines on hours of work for minors under 16 with FLSA standards.

Weaker standards often appear in areas of state code covering work hours or prohibited hazardous occupations. For example:

• Idaho allows employers to schedule 14–15-year-olds up to nine hours a day or 54 hours per week. Federal law allows employers to schedule 14–15-year-olds up to three hours a day or 18 hours per week in a school week and up to eight hours per day and 40 hours per week in a nonschool week.
• Iowa allows employers to hire 14-year-olds in industrial laundries and 15-year-olds in light assembly work, among other weaker standards. Federal law does not permit 14–15-year-olds to work in these settings.
• West Virginia allows employers to hire 16–17-year-olds enrolled in a “youth apprenticeship program” for all 17 hazardous occupations prohibited for minors under federal law. Federal law allows 16–17-year-olds to perform certain types of intermittent work in only seven of these occupations when enrolled in a bona fide registered apprenticeship program meeting certain stringent standards.

State policymakers should review their child labor statutes alongside federal child labor laws to identify areas of weakness. At a minimum, states should ensure that their guidelines for hours of work and hazardous occupations orders are at least as protective as the FLSA.

Step II: Close coverage gaps and address weaknesses in FLSA minimum protections

States can address many longstanding limitations and gaps in federal child labor protections. Examples of priority actions for state lawmakers to consider include:

1. Maintain effective youth work permit systems: Youth work permits have been shown to reduce child labor violations and aid in enforcement. The FLSA suggests—but does not require—that employers maintain certificates confirming the age of minors they employ. It also does not require minors to receive a permit as a condition of employment. Instead, youth work permit policies have historically been left to states. Most states already have some sort of permit system in place. Youth work permits are often simple, one-page forms that engage employers, parents, youth, and sometimes educators, in ensuring a child’s employment is legal, safe, and age-appropriate. Permits remind employers of existing child labor laws, inform parents of their child’s rights and affirm their consent, and aid state agencies in investigations of potential violations. States without work permit systems should implement them and states with existing work permit systems should assess and modernize their systems, as recently done in Illinois and New York and proposed in California.
2. Implement or expand work hour guidelines for 16- and 17-year-olds: The FLSA sets standards to protect children from excessive hours of work, especially during the school year. However, the FLSA was passed at a time when fewer than half of students completed high school, and its hours of work guidelines have never been updated to cover older minors (16- and 17-year-olds). In the absence of state standards, older teens can be scheduled to work unlimited hours per day or per week, including during school weeks. Some states have already adopted standards to address this gap, but fewer than half of states have hours guidelines in place for older teens. States should set maximum daily and weekly work hours for 16–17-year-olds and prohibit overnight work during the school week. Minimum standards should include limiting employers to scheduling 16–17-year-olds for no more than 32 hours in a school week, as nine states already do,1 and prohibiting employers from scheduling 16–17-year-olds to work after 10 p.m. or before 6 a.m. (or similar), as 20 states and D.C. already do.2
3. Update prohibitions on hazardous child labor: The FLSA prohibits minors under 18 from working in a list of 17 nonagricultural occupations and 11 agricultural occupations that have been found to be particularly hazardous for minors. Many of these hazardous occupations orders have never been updated. And new orders have not been created to account for new forms of hazards in our modern economy, particularly in agriculture. Moreover, the FLSA opens the door to dangerous exemptions from some hazardous orders,3 with language that allows student apprentices and learners enrolled in approved training programs to do certain types of hazardous work under close supervision. State lawmakers can update prohibitions on hazardous child labor by expanding existing hazardous orders, creating new orders to cover hazardous occupations not covered under federal law, and ending student learner and apprentice exemptions. Lawmakers can use the 2002 National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health recommendations to the U.S. Department of Labor as a guide for revising state hazardous orders. For example, Illinois recently updated and clarified state law to prohibit employment of minors in hazardous workplaces not covered under federal law, such as gun ranges and establishments primarily involved in the sale of tobacco or alcohol.
4. Extend equal protections to children working in agricultural occupations: Agriculture is the most dangerous sector of employment for minors, yet federal child labor standards remain much weaker in agriculture than in nonagricultural industries. State lawmakers can address this longstanding gap in federal law by aligning agricultural child labor standards for work hours and hazardous work with standards for nonfarm work. For example, in 2025, New Jersey lawmakers introduced a bill to raise the minimum age for agricultural employment to 14 and align work hours and hazardous work protections in agriculture with nonagricultural standards, among other updates to protections for farmworkers of all ages.
5. Increase civil penalties to deter violations and update them based on inflation: Under most existing state penalty structures, civil monetary penalties for child labor violations are very limited and, in some cases, nonexistent. Some states levy no civil penalties at all, and many states have not reviewed or updated penalty amounts in decades. In Indiana, for example, penalties range from a warning letter for an initial violation to a maximum of only $400 for a fourth violation within two years. Low or nonexistent penalties that can easily be absorbed as a “cost of doing business” do not deter employer violations and leave state enforcement agencies with few tools for ensuring compliance by bad actors. To ensure penalties serve as effective deterrents and enforcement tools, state lawmakers should set meaningful minimum penalties for first offenses and very high maximum penalties for serious or repeat offenses, as Illinois did in 2024. States can use federal civil penalties and annual adjustments as a benchmark; for example, current federal maximum civil penalties for a child labor violation range from $16,035 to $145,752, and rates are adjusted for inflation each year.
6. Strengthen state enforcement capacity and authority: Ensuring adequate state enforcement of child labor laws will become particularly important as federal enforcement capacity is diminished.
   • States should ensure funding for dedicated child labor enforcement staff so as not to take resources away from other wage and hour investigations. For example, a Virginia lawmaker recently requested an increased budget appropriation for child labor enforcement.
   • States should grant labor agencies sufficient authority to fulfill enforcement goals. For example, Nebraska recently enacted a bill that gives its labor agency power to subpoena records from employers suspected of violating the law.
7. Eliminate youth subminimum wages: The FLSA allows workers under age 20 to be paid as little as $4.25 per hour for their first 90 days of employment and allows employers to pay a lower minimum wage to full-time students in certain occupations, student learners, and apprentices. In recent years, some states have taken action to close these gaps so that all workers—regardless of their age—have a right to the minimum wage. All states should follow suit.

Step III: Modernize child labor standards to protect children’s health and wellbeing, safeguard their right to education, and improve their career prospects

The most effective child labor laws implement evidence-based guardrails to prevent excessive and hazardous work—as discussed above—alongside innovative policies to empower youth workers, deter violations, and provide meaningful redress and support to victims if violations occur. State lawmakers need not be bound by traditional areas of policy covered by the FLSA and can also:

1. Require workers’ rights education: If young workers do not know their rights, they will be less likely to report unsafe or illegal working conditions. States can invest in labor education to address this information gap. For example, California mandated that high schools annually teach students about workplace rights and the labor movement following a curriculum developed by the UC Berkeley Labor Center.
2. Mandate employer training on child labor laws and commitment to following the law: For example, Washington requires businesses who hire minors to obtain a special endorsement on their business license affirming compliance with child labor laws.
3. Encourage reporting by protecting whistleblowers and victims: Most labor investigations depend on worker reporting. Because young workers lack experience and knowledge about workplace rights and may fear employer retaliation, loss of wages, or immigration enforcement, many workplace abuses go unreported and uninvestigated. To address these enforcement challenges, state lawmakers should:
   1. Provide multiple avenues for child labor victims to be made whole after they report violations and risk losing their job. In most states, civil penalties for child labor violations are deposited into the state’s General Fund, and minors receive no compensation in the form of damages owed by the employer. Moreover, when a child is injured or killed on the job while employed illegally, they (or their family members in the event of the child’s death) are generally limited to the workers’ compensation system as their sole source of financial compensation. However, several states have enacted or proposed bills to make aggrieved minors eligible for additional compensation in the form of damages; for example, Colorado recently made it possible for minors who are injured while employed under illegal conditions to pursue private legal action and receive monetary damages.
   2. Enact whistleblower and anti-retaliation protections to protect workers who report labor abuses, as recently done in Minnesota.
   3. Remove provisions of state law that may discourage reporting of violations, such as those holding parents criminally responsible for allowing a child to be employed under illegal conditions, as Colorado recently did.
   4. Provide wraparound services to victims of illegal child labor to address root causes of excessive or hazardous work. For example, unaccompanied migrant youth should be provided with legal services, assistance in securing safe and age-appropriate work, and connections to community-based organizations or local government agencies that can provide additional supportive services.
4. Use innovative enforcement strategies to meaningfully hold employers accountable: Civil monetary penalties are a necessary but insufficient deterrent. State lawmakers should take a holistic approach to changing employer behavior and significantly increase the financial and reputational costs associated with breaking the law. They should:
   1. Use “hot goods” provisions and “stop work” orders to immediately disrupt the normal business of employers who are actively violating the law. “Hot goods” provisions allow courts to stop the flow of goods produced using illegal child labor and are currently in place federally. “Stop work” orders allow labor agencies to require the cessation of business until child labor violations are addressed, increasing the cost of violating the law. New Jersey permits such orders to be used when minimum wage violations are occurring.
   2. Bar violators from receiving public funding as proposed in Alabama, and implement other penalties, like revoking an employer’s permission to hire minors when they violate the law, as enacted in Washington.
   3. Create lead corporation accountability, so corporations are held jointly responsible for violations committed by their subcontractors or staffing agencies as proposed in a federal bill.
   4. Make employer violations data more accessible to the public—as recently mandated in Colorado—or publicly shame companies that violate the law by posting about violations on the state labor agency’s website—similar to New Jersey and New York.
   5. You can read more about these and other policies to address and deter violations here: Policies for states and localities to fight oppressive child labor.

Additional recommended resources 

• Child labor state legislation tracker (Economic Policy Institute) 

• Campaign to End US Child Labor 

• Child Labor Coalition at the National Consumers League 

• Federal child labor regulations under the Fair Labor Standards Act  

• State child labor laws (U.S. Department of Labor; note that this page may not reflect all recent state legislative changes) 

• How states can stop the corporate campaign to roll back child labor protections (State Innovation Exchange and Economic Policy Institute) 

Editor’s note: This piece was revised on October 24, 2025, to add an “Additional recommended resources” section. 

1. Connecticut (32 hours), Florida (30), Kentucky (30), Maine (24), Michigan (24), New Hampshire (30), New York (28), Pennsylvania (28), Washington (20). See https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/state/child-labor.

2. Alabama (10 p.m. to 5 a.m.), Arkansas (11 p.m. to 6 a.m.), California (10 p.m. to 5 a.m.), Connecticut (10 or 11 p.m. to 6 a.m.), Florida (11 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.), Indiana (10 p.m. to 6 a.m.), Kentucky (11 p.m. to 6 a.m.), Louisiana (11 p.m. or 12 a.m. to 5 a.m.), Maine (10:15 a.m. to 7 a.m.), Massachusetts (10 p.m. to 6 a.m.), Michigan (11:30 p.m. to 6 a.m.), Minnesota (11 p.m. to 5 a.m.), New Jersey (11 p.m. to 6 a.m.), New York (10 p.m. to 6 a.m.), North Carolina (11 p.m. to 5 a.m.), Ohio (11 p.m. to 7 a.m.), Pennsylvania (12 a.m. to 6 a.m.), Rhode Island (11:30 p.m. to 6 a.m.), Tennessee (10 p.m. to 6 a.m.), Washington (10 p.m. to 7 a.m.), and D.C. (10 p.m. to 6 a.m.). See https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/state/child-labor.

3. Hazardous occupation (HO) 5. Power-driven woodworking machines; HO 8. Power-driven metal-forming, punching and shearing machines; HO 10. Power-driven meat-processing machines, slaughtering and meat packing plants; HO 12. Balers, compactors, and power-driven paper-products machines; HO 14. Power-driven circular saws, band saws, guillotine shears, chain saws, reciprocating saws, wood chippers, and abrasive cutting discs; HO 16. Roofing operations and work performed on or about a roof; HO 17. Trenching and excavation operations.

Long-standing U.S. worker rights and protections are under acute threat. These include attempts to roll back standards that set a national floor for minimum wages, health and safety, nondiscrimination, unemployment insurance, and other rights and protections long taken for granted in most U.S. workplaces.

Jump to the state solutions

Under the second Trump administration, intense attacks have proliferated by the day and taken many forms. Cuts to federal agency funding and mass firings of federal civil servants—targeting agencies like the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the CDC’s National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, the National Labor Relations Board, and U.S. Department of Labor units like the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Wage and Hour Division—have quickly imperiled the federal government’s capacity to ensure U.S. workers get paid what they’re owed, stay safe at work, have the freedom to form a union, and work in environments free from discrimination. Simultaneously, executive actions have directly targeted rights of workers for elimination. Examples include decisions to lower wages of federal contractors; strip union rights of federal employees; revoke work authorization for hundreds of thousands of migrant workers; and block the implementation of new standards to safeguard workers’ overtime wages, freedom to change jobs, and right to organize. Most recently, the administration has  taken initial steps to roll back scores of wage and hour and health and safety standards via proposed regulatory changes.

At the same time, Trump’s escalating and often lawless attacks on migrant workers are fostering a climate of fear that will worsen workplace conditions across the country and make it harder for workers to report labor abuses. The administration has also cancelled programs that protected workers from immigration-related retaliation when speaking up about labor violations or that helped prevent exploitative, illegal forms of child labor by allowing migrant youth fleeing neglect or abuse to petition for legal work authorization and a pathway to citizenship.

Trump’s attacks on workers run parallel to industry-backed attempts to ratchet down state labor standards while building pressure to erode federal standards for the whole country. For example, lawmakers in Ohio have repeatedly paired legislation to extend hours children can be scheduled to work on school nights (contradicting current federal guidelines) with concurrent resolutions calling on Congress to “change [the] Fair Labor Standards Act” to bring federal standards in line with weaker state rules. Project 2025, the policy roadmap closely followed so far by the second Trump administration, proposes allowing states to “opt out” of federal minimum wage, overtime, and child labor standards. If pursued, this drastic step would put workers at risk of extreme forms of exploitation.

The crisis calls for urgent action. At a minimum, states must be equipped to maintain and enforce basic protections should at-risk federal standards disappear. The crisis also presents opportunities for states to do much more to:

• remedy longstanding gaps and exclusions in weak or outdated labor and employment laws;
• advance new policies that address the pressing challenges of eroding worker power, growing income inequality, persistent racial and gender wage gaps, and declining job quality; and
• position states over the long term to assume more expansive, effective roles in enacting and enforcing key protections that form the bedrock of an economy that works for all.

Following a growing trend, Republican lawmakers this year proposed legislation in Florida, Kentucky, and Ohio that would undermine federal laws on child labor, minimum wage, and worker health and safety protections. These proliferating state challenges to federal law are laying the groundwork for more extreme and dangerous Project 2025 proposals to allow employers across the country to hire children for hazardous jobs or to allow states to “opt out” of various federal labor standards like the minimum wage.

Multiple states have enacted or proposed legislation to weaken state child labor and minimum wage protections in ways that conflict with federal law

The Trump administration’s first 100 days have closely followed the Project 2025 policy roadmap. Mass firings of federal civil servants, closures of field offices with labor enforcement roles, and deep cuts have quickly imperiled the federal government’s capacity to ensure U.S. workers get paid what they’re owed, stay safe at work, have the freedom to form a union, and work in environments free from discrimination.

Meanwhile, many states have weakened child labor protections in recent years, and some states like Iowa have openly defied long-standing federal laws like the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), which has set a national floor for minimum wages, overtime pay, and child labor standards since 1938. State laws can provide more protection than the federal statute mandates, but they cannot provide less. Where state standards are weaker than those provided in FLSA, federal law preempts the state standard.

This year, legislation in both Ohio and Florida attempts to weaken state child labor standards in ways that challenge federal law. In Ohio, Republicans have reintroduced a proposal to extend the hours employers can schedule 14- and 15-year-olds to work during the school year, conflicting with FLSA guardrails in place to ensure that young teens can enter the workforce without jeopardizing their health or education. A concurrent resolution introduced with the child labor bill calls on Congress to amend the FLSA to align with weaker hours guidelines proposed for Ohio. As of this publication, the legislation has passed the state Senate and is now being considered in the House.

As Ohio’s concurrent resolution illustrates, state legislators have often been clear that they understand these weaker standards conflict with FLSA rules (and therefore only apply in non-FLSA-covered employment contexts)—and that such conflict is in fact part of the point. In 2024, an Indiana lawmaker speaking in support of a child labor bill that would have violated federal law promised that, if elected to Congress, he would “throw out all the book of regulation of employing our youth.” In 2023, Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds signed an unprecedented package of rollbacks to child labor standards, over many public objections that the extreme changes conflicted with federal law and would create confusion and increased legal liability for employers. A year later when some Iowa employers were fined for FLSA violations after following the state’s weakened child labor laws, Governor Reynolds enlisted the state’s congressional delegation in protesting the federal fines and published her own editorial arguing that the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) should “look to Iowa as an example” of how to relax child labor standards and enforcement.

In Florida, lawmakers are seeking to treat minors like adults with regard to work hours while paying them a subminimum wage. Proposed legislation would eliminate all hours of work guidelines for 16- and 17-year-olds, allowing employers to schedule these teens for unlimited hours year-round, including overnight shifts during the school year. The House version of the bill initially proposed also allowing employers to schedule 13-year-olds to work during the summer of the calendar year in which they turn 14, even though federal law has set 14 as the minimum age for employment in most jobs. In response to concerns raised by youth advocates, the provision to allow 13-year-olds to be gainfully employed was amended out of the bill.

Meanwhile, a separate bill in Florida would allow employers to pay youth “interns” or work-study participants an hourly wage lower than the constitutionally mandated state minimum wage, attempting to reestablish a subminimum wage loophole that was closed by a Florida ballot measure in 2020. FLSA rules are clear that individual workers cannot legally be induced to waive their right to a minimum wage, and employers may only pay subminimum wages under narrow special circumstances that require DOL certification. Yet, this long-standing FLSA protection has faced repeated challenges. An Arkansas legislator, for example, suggested in 2023 that the state should allow high school students to complete required community service hours by working for free for local businesses.

Fortunately, after significant public opposition, both Florida bills are expected to fail this session. While the child labor rollback bill passed in the House, as of this publication it was not slated to be taken up by the Senate before Florida’s legislature adjourns this year.

However, by repeatedly proposing and—in some cases—implementing standards that conflict with federal law, these states are chipping away at the already fragile federal floor for workplace protections. At the same time, they are shifting the entire burden of enforcing worker protections to chronically underfunded federal agencies that, amid Trump administration attacks, are now facing even more pronounced staffing shortages that will limit enforcement capacity.

Some states are already modeling Project 2025 proposals to allow states to “opt out” of federal labor laws

While Project 2025 proposes allowing all states to seek exemptions from the FLSA, some states have already adopted systems for employers to sidestep child labor laws. Florida has long maintained a system to grant individual employers approval to schedule minors to work beyond the limits of state child labor laws. Legally, the only state child labor protections that a state could legitimately “waive” would be those that exceed federal standards, but Florida’s statute on granting waivers does not spell out this limitation, leaving the system ripe for abuse by employers who may see it as an opportunity to gain state sanction to ignore federal law with little oversight (Florida’s labor department was dismantled in 2002).

In 2023, Iowa lawmakers created a system that even more explicitly violates federal law, allowing the state to grant “waivers” to employers seeking to employ minors in violation of federal hazardous occupations orders. Under the new system, the agency has begun to grant such waivers despite objections raised by the state’s department of inspections and state Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

State lawmakers are also challenging federal workplace health and safety protections

Beyond child labor laws, some states have proposed legislation that conflicts with federal OSHA standards that set a floor for workplace safety for workers of all ages.

This year, Kentucky enacted legislation that could be in violation of federal requirements that states with their own OSHA plans must maintain standards and enforcement that is “at least as effective” as provided by federal OSHA. The new law prohibits the state from enforcing any worker health and safety regulations that are more protective than federal standards—effectively dismantling existing state standards—and also makes it harder to file complaints and hold employers accountable (making fines “optional” for violations, for example) in ways that fall below the minimum threshold of expectations set by federal OSHA.

In 2021, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis proposed creating a state OSHA agency, but only because he did not want the state to be subject to federal OSHA standards and falsely believed that a state agency would allow Florida to enact weaker health and safety protections for Florida workers.

Lawmakers can resist these threats by strengthening state worker protections

Many aspects of these current attacks bear close resemblance to past industry-backed attempts to block or dismantle federal worker protections, from the New Deal to OSHA. For example, today’s conservative calls to weaken federal child labor laws hearken back to 1982 proposals from Ronald Reagan’s labor department to extend maximum daily and weekly work hours for minors, expand youth subminimum wages, and roll back hazardous occupations orders that protect minors from being employed in particularly dangerous jobs. And arguments for rolling back child labor laws (re)surfacing in states today often closely echo those used by the business interests that aggressively fought passage and implementation of the FLSA from the 1930s up to the present.

Most of these past assaults on federal minimum labor standards were largely defeated, but not without persistent, coordinated responses from workers, unions, advocates, and policymakers. As Project 2025-style threats to workplace rights continue to mount today, it is particularly urgent to defend against state-level attacks on labor standards and seize opportunities to shore up state worker protections—at a minimum to ensure more states are equipped to maintain and enforce basic protections should at-risk federal standards disappear or go largely unenforced under the Trump administration. The crisis also presents opportunities for states to do much more, such as remedying long-standing gaps and exclusions in weak or outdated employment and labor laws that leave millions of workers without coverage; advancing new policies that address the economic challenges of growing income inequality, persistent racial and gender wage gaps, and declining job quality; and reasserting states’ roles in raising the floor for labor standards rather than driving a race to the bottom.

Fortunately, there are proven strategies for strengthening standards that protect children, such as youth work permits—which outline the potential hours and work duties for a minor worker. In particular, youth work permits ensure that jobs children start as young as age 14 or 15 come with safe conditions and hours that don’t interfere with their education and development. In this post, we share highlights from new research that sheds light on the effectiveness of youth work permits and suggest how states can strengthen permit programs as legislative sessions begin this month.

States have led the way on protecting youth workers, but youth work permits are under threat

States have historically played an important role in setting child labor standards that exceed minimum federal standards set by the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Though the FLSA governs work hours for minors under age 16 and outlines prohibitively hazardous occupations for minors under age 18, many other safeguards—like rest breaks or protections from overnight shifts for 16-year-olds—are absent from federal law and left up to states.

Youth work permits are similarly not required under federal law. The majority of states and the District of Columbia require them in some form (see Figure 1), but they have recently come under attack by right-wing think tanks and industry groups seeking to provide employers unfettered access to cheap labor. Since 2023, eight states have proposed eliminating youth work permits, and three have signed these measures into law.

Figure 1

Proponents of eliminating youth work permits argue that work permits are not effective at deterring violations, are overly burdensome on employers, and take away parents’ right to decide whether to let their child work. However, none of these claims are accurate, as we explain below.

New data show work permits help prevent child labor violations

Recent research using comprehensive data from the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division provides the first quantitative evidence that work permits help prevent child labor violations. Between 2008 and 2020, states that mandated employment certificates saw 15.5% fewer child labor violation cases and 35.2% fewer minors involved in these violations compared with states that had no such requirements (see Figure 2).

Figure 2

The impact is particularly consistent in high-risk industries. In the accommodation and food services sector—which accounts for over half of all child labor violations—states with work permit requirements saw 18.5% fewer violation cases and 34.6% fewer minors involved in violations. Further, states with work permit requirements saw nearly 30% lower civil penalties per minor involved in the violations, suggesting these requirements also help prevent more serious forms of child labor exploitation.

The research also revealed that work permits are particularly important during periods of low unemployment—like we are experiencing today—as employers turn to children to fill job vacancies. When unemployment rates decrease by one percentage point, child labor violations increase by 5.7%.

States with lower per capita income saw more violations, highlighting the need for protective measures in economically challenged areas. The data also showed a significant correlation between the arrival of unaccompanied migrant children and increased child labor violations, emphasizing the importance of maintaining strong protective measures for vulnerable youth.

The research leaves no room for doubt: Work permits are a proven policy tool that help prevent child labor violations. Rolling back these requirements would remove a crucial layer of protection at a time when we’re seeing concerning increases in child labor violations nationwide.

The work permit approval and documentation process plays an essential role

Youth work permits are often simple, one-page forms that are quickly processed by employers and serve important purposes—ensuring a child’s work is safe and age-appropriate, informing parents of their child’s rights and affirming their consent, and aiding in investigations of potential violations. In states like Wisconsin, the work permit process not only serves a documentation function but also generates the revenue needed to investigate potential violations.

To the extent that the processing of youth work permits takes time and effort, the process is deliberate, and when permits are denied, it’s for good reason. In 2023, the Maine Labor Department reported denying about 200 out of 4,700 youth work permit applications because the proposed work duties involved hazardous work that is prohibited for minors.

If youth employment is intended to benefit young workers and not simply their employers, then a system that allows hiring minors with maximum speed and convenience for the benefit of employers seeking cheap labor should not be the goal.  

Work permits ensure informed consent from parents and guardians

The decision about whether a child can or should seek employment rests with families. Work permits formalize parental consent, requiring employers to give parents information about the child’s job in writing and ensuring that a child’s potential work activities are safe and age-appropriate. Eliminating work permits takes away a parent’s right to make an informed decision about whether a job is appropriate for their child.

At the same time, most parents are not experts on workplace health and safety or labor and employment law, and they should not be held responsible for identifying occupations that may be particularly hazardous or illegal for minors. This is why permit systems that engage all stakeholders—parents, schools, employers, and the government—are the best way to ensure compliance with the law and the well-being of children.

State legislators should strengthen—not weaken or eliminate—their youth work permit systems

As state legislators prepare for legislative sessions to begin, they should oppose misguided attempts to eliminate youth work permits and look to strengthen them by making sure the process is clear, accessible, and effective at keeping minors safe at work. Lawmakers can expand their use of the work permit system as an opportunity to educate young workers and their families about their rights and the work duties they cannot by law be asked to perform. State labor agencies can also require employers to receive training on federal and state child labor laws.

In 2024, Illinois strengthened its work permit process in a comprehensive bill that bolstered child labor standards and enforcement, and a similar bill was recently approved in the Michigan Senate and awaits consideration in the House. These bills should serve as a guide to other states on how to modernize their child labor laws and support the rights of young people to access job opportunities that are safe and age-appropriate.

Donald Trump’s Project 2025 proposes allowing states to opt out of federal child labor laws and seeks to make it easier for employers to hire children for hazardous jobs. At a moment when federal standards are likely to come under attack, the responsibility of state lawmakers to raise their own standards is especially urgent.