Tornado Alley (PROG)

[fuagf]

What's your solution? An Israeli type border wall on the whole southern border? And on the northern border ..

Trump Is Freaking Out About the Wrong Border: Killer Fentanyl Is Coming From Canada
""100% of heroin/fentanyl epidemic is because we don't have a WALL."
— Ann Coulter on Tuesday, January 30th, 2018 in a tweet"
While Trump raged about building a wall on the southern border, a lab in Calgary was pumping
out 18,000 counterfeit OxyContin per hour. Inside the new threat north of the border.
With others - https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=170318618 ..

a like Israeli wall??

Some believe the kids are better schooling half-day and working half-day. Others say school is better full time. Noted now a number of states are trying four day weeks to attack their teacher shortage. Many employers have difficulty getting staff. Republican states are attacking child labor laws. Children in Guatemala see the only families getting along in Guatemala (especially after covid) are those getting remittances from the USA. Children want to help their families. Do you blame the parents of the children arriving at the border for sending their children to get to enable getting remittances from the US? Do you blame the Guatemalan government for the situation?

Many have been trying to fix the situation for a long time. Like the southern border problem. Like more recently the opioid crisis.

Are you in favor of fencing off the USA as so many suburbs are fenced off? Like medieval castles, a bit.

Bottom line who has been, in your mind, fanning the flames?

A bit of history -- Child Labor in America: History, Policy, and Legislative Issues

February 9, 2005 – November 18, 2013 RL31501

The history of child labor in America is long and, in some cases, unsavory. It dates back to the founding of the United States. Historically, except for the privileged few, most children worked—either for their parents or for an outside employer. Through the years, however, child labor practices have changed. So have the benefits and risks associated with employment of children. In some respects, altered workplace technology has served to make work easier and less hazardous. At the same time, some processes and equipment have rendered the workplace more advanced and dangerous, especially for children and youth.

Child labor first became a federal legislative issue at least as far back as 1906 with the introduction of the Beveridge proposal for regulation of the types of work in which children might be engaged. Although the 1906 legislation was not adopted, it led to extended study of the conditions under which children were employed or allowed to work and to a series of legislative proposals—some approved, others defeated or overturned by the courts—culminating in the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) of 1938. The latter statute, amended periodically, remains the primary federal law dealing with the employment of children.

[...]

Re-emergence of the Child Labor Issue (1982-2000)

By the late 1940s, exploitation and endangerment of young children in the world-of-work was popularly believed to have been resolved through legislation (the FLSA) and through the administrative discretion of the Secretary of Labor in implementing the FLSA. But, occasionally someone would recall that very young children still toiled in field harvest work, or an especially egregious accident would bring the more general issue back to the front page.

[ Insert: Child labor laws in the United States
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_labor_laws_in_the_United_States ]

At the same time, there had begun a gradual shift of focus to a new issue—inadequate opportunities for youth employment—and the related question of delinquency. In May 1961, for example, some 500 men and women met in Washington, DC, "to discuss [this] ... serious but little known national problem." The summary report of the conference observed that

Again and again in the past decade, juvenile delinquency and the outbreaks of youthful street gangs have made headlines. The fact that large numbers of our youth, 16 to 21 years of age, are out of school and unemployed, significant as it may be in terms of delinquency, has far greater significance in terms of what changes are taking place in our society....

The summary report pointed to an unemployment rate of 17.1% for this age group—with a somewhat higher rate for minority youth. "There have always been young people who dropped out before finishing high school or grade school.... But until recently, except during the depression, there were ample unskilled jobs for workers of limited education." That, the report stated, was no longer true. "When no work is to be had at home, the small-town boys and the farm boys go off to the cities where, ill-prepared for urban jobs, they swell the ranks of the young unemployed." And that, argued Harvard's James B. Conant, "is social dynamite" (emphasis in the original).33

Through the next two decades, the literature on youth employment (youth joblessness) grew rapidly with numerous panaceas for the problem being advanced. In retrospect, there seems to have been little agreement among policy analysts—except that the problem was serious.34 However, youth unemployment (or joblessness) notwithstanding, large numbers of youths have continued to seek and to find work.

Although many young persons under the age of 15 are employed, there are more data on the employment status of older youth.35 Looking at the labor force participation of 15- to 17-year-old-youth through the period 1996-1998, on average, "about a fourth of both male and female youths were employed during average school months. During the summer, about one-third of both male and female youths worked," the Department of Labor reported. But DOL also reported significant variations in employment status when considered in terms of race and ethnicity. About 28% of white youths were employed during school months; about 38% during the summer. For blacks, the comparable figures were 13% (school months) and 20% (summer); for youth of Hispanic origin, 15% (school months) and 20% (summer).36

The Reagan-Era Initiatives

In July 1982, Labor Secretary Raymond Donovan (for the Reagan Administration) proposed that existing child labor policy be updated. The Administration's plan would have (1) opened more opportunities for employment for children 14 and 15 years of age; (2) extended the number of hours per day and per week that children might be employed; (3) revised standards for the employment of child workers in jobs once considered too hazardous; and (4) simplified and broadened the manner in which employers could become certified by DOL to employ full-time students at less than the standard minimum wage.

The Donovan proposal sparked an immediate reaction. When opening hearings before the House Labor Standards Subcommittee of which he was chair, Representative George Miller (D-CA) sharply criticized the Administration's proposals.37 In turn, Wage/Hour Administrator William Otter defended them as sound and reasonable public policy. He read from letters from young persons, parents, and potential employers urging flexibility in child labor regulation so that 14- and 15-year-olds could be more easily employed. Although acknowledging a high unemployment rate among 16- to 19-year-olds, Otter affirmed his concern "about the unemployment levels of all age groups" and stated the view that "nreasonable and artificial impediments to the employment of all age groups should be eliminated."38

Proponents and critics seemed to agree that the Reagan Administration "had walked into a minefield" where the child labor issue was concerned.39 In February 1983, Nation's Restaurant News reported that "Federal wage and hour regulators are sifting through a blizzard of letters from restaurant operators across the nation supporting the Reagan Administration's plan to relax child labor restrictions on the employment of young teenagers in food-service outlets." But, the News also reported that the proposal had "generated a storm of protest from educational groups, labor unions, and Congressmen who expressed outrage over what some described as a scheme to enable restauranteurs to exploit school age workers."40 .. https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/RL31501.html

The opioid problem. Obviously the users could be said to blame there. The border problem? Those who employ the young? The Guatemalan parents who send them to America? The child labor problem. The ones who employ the young.

As we all know they are all serious problems. Who does the best to tackle them?

It is easier just to blame both and leave it at that.