Gingrich just said he wants to let teenagers work and that the child labor laws are bad for kids. He may have something there… He wants to attract attention and play the conservative, but then he’s a johnny-come-lately in the Audit-the-Fed conversation, and still supports the militarism that is draining the country’s resources along with the entitlement programs.. and the interest on the debt…
I once had a newpaper stand, a newspaper route, worked for a grocer, worked for a pharmacy, through high school, plus made potholders and sold them door to door when I was a lot smaller than that. (Neighborhoods were safer then). Kept the proceeds.
Child labor laws and school truancy laws, along with minimum wage laws, only have a warping effect of keeping the supply of labor artificially high. Stories about abuses make us think that’s the only side to the picture blah blah and there of course human nature being what it is, there are going to be abuses among the millions and billions of humans on the earth.
But sometimes the cure is an abuse you don’t feel because you can’t perceive the difference. Here’s one guy who in earlier and tougher times, a child of 12 had to work to support the family when his father died. Giving such families payouts does not help matters, as we can see with the way the “Great Society” has crashed…
When Samuel was 12, his father died of pneumonia, and at 13, Samuel left school to become a printer’s apprentice. After two short years, he joined his brother Orion’s newspaper as a printer and editorial assistant. It was here that young Samuel found he enjoyed writing.
At 17, he left Hannibal behind for a printer’s job in St. Louis. While in St. Louis, Clemens became a river pilot’s apprentice. He became a licensed river pilot in 1858. Clemens’ pseudonym, Mark Twain, comes from his days as a river pilot. It is a river term which means two fathoms or 12-feet when the depth of water for a boat is being sounded. “Mark Twain” means that is safe to navigate.
Maybe Gingrich has been getting some education from the “Austrians”.
The Trouble with Child Labor Laws:
http://mises.org/daily/2858
You might be surprised to know that the laws against “child labor” do not date from the 18th century. Indeed, the national law against child labor didn’t pass until the Great Depression — in 1938, with the Fair Labor Standards Act. It was the same law that gave us a minimum wage and defined what constitutes full-time and part-time work. It was a handy way to raise wages and lower the unemployment rate: simply define whole sectors of the potential workforce as unemployable.By the time this legislation passed, however, it was mostly a symbol, a classic case of Washington chasing a trend in order to take credit for it. Youth labor was expected in the 17th and 18th centuries — even welcome, since remunerative work opportunities were newly present. But as prosperity grew with the advance of commerce, more kids left the workforce. By 1930, only 6.4 percent of kids between the ages of 10 and 15 were actually employed, and 3 out of 4 of those were in agriculture.
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