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Madison LaPlante

Mrs. Jackie Burr, Instructor

English 1010, Section 4

11 February 2019

Open Letter to Utah’s Child Labor Laws

Having a job is considered a privilege in our country, but despite what our government

thinks, working is vital. Young kids and adults are no exception to this statistic. There are many

reasons for minors to start working so early in their life: financial trouble at home, independence

to support their own needs, or they simply want one. The idea of youth employment seems quite

innocent at first glance; they participate at their job for a few hours or so, and at the end of two

weeks they receive a decent paycheck to spend however they please. What is not seen at that first

glance is: decreased time to focus on schoolwork, lost hours of their childhood youth, the risk of

being taken advantage of by their employers, and increased stress. Yes, there are many positive

consequences to working young, but child labor laws should air on the side of the minor-- to

protect them.

Tipping toeing around the internet, attempting to browse several websites with

information about child labor laws, I discovered lack of these aforementioned websites. In fact,

attempting to do in depth research on this topic was quite difficult as I struggled to find recent

data on this issue. Trying to find current statistics in my state especially was nearly impossible.

Updates have not been made to Utah labor laws since 2014. Five years have gone by with

employers referencing the same PDF file of guidelines to follow for the workers under eighteen.

To sum it up, laws forbid kids from working: four hours before and after school, more than eight
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hours in a 24 hour period, more than forty hours in a week, and past 9:30 on a school night.

However, these laws only hold up for children under sixteen. This means, children sixteen and

older have no laws defending them. Are they not as important? Are kids in the most crucial

stages of their high school career not as valuable as the ones just starting high school? I disagree.

Some may argue that children these ages should be old enough to protect themselves from their

employers taking advantage of them, but they are only two and three years older than the kids the

law is actually taking care of.

Utah legislators seem to skim over the fact that the older young adults get, the more

responsibilities are piled onto their backs. Colleges, graduating, scholarships, and more are

traveling around their busy minds. So, the most fragile kids receive the least laws taking care of

them? Kids these ages are the most vulnerable stages of having their employers take advantage

of them. These young high-schoolers merely want to make some extra pocket money-- or worse,

support their family. Employers know this, and work them extra hours because no laws prevent

them from doing so. I landed my first job at sixteen, and I have now been working for over a

year at the same place. Every night, I am there for long hours into the night with an entire school

day ahead of me the next morning. Sure, I can talk to my bosses about not keeping me late into

the night, but nothing legal stops them from doing this in the first place. Business operators

should not expect young kids to put their jobs ahead of their education, which is what the law is

allowing them to do.

The following chart depicts the amount of workers from the ages of sixteen to 24. It also

shows how many of those are in high school or college. In 2009, we experienced a significant

decrease throughout all categories and this is because of the Great Recession during the
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2000’s-2010’s. This was a time of economic decline and it affected everyone-- not just

employment of the youth.

From the same website as the picture, it states that, “Youth enrolled in high school had an

employment rate of twenty percent, while the rate was 47 percent for those in college, either full-

or part-time.” (Child Trends) Twenty percent of all high schoolers have a job as of October of

2017. Half of those will not be protected under the way Utah sets their child labor laws.

Utah legislators push on the importance of furthering education outside of high school--

but how is this expected if there are no laws for those students in the most fragile state of high

school? This begins a thought process of work being more important than school, grades, or

sleep. Children have the rest of their lives to work consistently and they spend their youth

partaking in constant work.

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I interviewed a couple high school workers to understand how they are dealing with

school plus the workload of a job. I asked, “How does working late affect you mentally,

physically, and emotionally?” Brynlee Sorensen, a dancer on dance company, responded with,

“It sucks because I have to get up at 5:30 the next day, and staying at work until eleven or twelve

doesn’t let me get to bed until 12:30 or 1:00. I am always tired and I feel physically drained. It

does kind of affect me emotionally too.” I asked the same question to Jaeden Herrick, a Subway

employee. Her response was: “I don’t get out until eleven or twelve and having to wake up at

6:30 makes me really tired and sometimes when it happens a lot I get sick a ton.” The opinion of

two seventeen year olds may seem insignificant until it is multiplied by twenty percent of the

nation’s employed high schoolers.

Young fourteen and fifteen year olds may need the law on their side as they enter the

workforce-- but so do sixteen and seventeen year olds. These kids have many things in common:

being in high school, having a job, and being a minor. Why does a two-three year age gap hold

the key difference in law protection?

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Works Cited

“Employment of Minors.” ​Employment Discrimination - Antidiscrimination and Labor Division

Utah Labor Commission​, Web. 05 Feb. 2019.

Herrick, Jaeden. Personal Interview. 10 Feb. 2019.

“Pros and Cons of Teens Working Part-Time.” ​York County Federal Credit Union,​ 4 Oct. 2017,

Web. 05 Feb. 2019.

Sorensen, Brynlee. Personal Interview. 10 Feb. 2019.

“Youth Employment.” ​Child Trends​, Web. 5 Feb. 2019