We learned a century ago that children need protections at work, writes Adam Raymond. In this archival photo, youngsters stand on electric looms in order to reach the top shelf while at work in a cotton mill in Georgia. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

When I was 16, I nearly sliced two fingers off my left hand while working at a plastics factory. A tenacious strip of tissue and pins inserted through my fingertips gave me a second chance.

I thought of my near amputation last week as the state House passed House Bill 255, which would weaken Kentucky’s already permissive child labor laws. That bill will put more children at risk of falling behind at school, being exploited by unscrupulous employers eager for low-wage workers and getting hurt at work.

House GOP approve bill loosening Kentucky child labor law

In the floor debate, supporters said the goal of HB 255 is to allow teenagers to work. Of course, Kentucky regulations already allow that. Under current law, bosses can schedule 16- and 17-year-olds as many as 40 hours a week and for 6.5-hour shifts on the heels of their seven-hours in the classroom. They can schedule kids to get off at 11:00 p.m. on school nights and 1 a.m. on weekends. If HB 255 becomes law those limitations would be removed, allowing bosses to push kids to work through the night and as much as they need them.

This moves Kentucky in the wrong direction. Research consistently shows that more than 20 hours of work during the school week is bad for kids. It leads to more academic challenges and more behavior problems. It leaves less time for academics and results in higher dropout rates. Studies have shown that the more hours worked, the more grades suffer.

In the past three years, at least 28 states have seen bills that would weaken child labor laws so corporations can rely on cheap and compliant child workers rather than cut into their bottom lines to hire adults who need the work.

These long hours would also come with an increased risk of workplace injuries, like mine. Young workers already get hurt at high rates. Working them harder and longer and depriving them of even more sleep certainly won’t improve those statistics.

Helping kids prepare for a good career or for college should be our priority. Done judiciously, work can be part of that. It can help kids establish independence, learn skills and earn money. This is not an argument against teenagers working. It’s an argument against fueling more school dropouts and giving employers permission to exploit kids as cheap labor and put them in dangerous jobs.?

HB 255 makes that more likely by loosening restrictions on the tasks children as young as 14 can perform at work, allowing them to do professional landscaping or coop chickens on a poultry factory farm. While it would remain illegal to do this work under federal law because of the severe hazards, changing state law creates confusion and leaves oversight in the hands of an underfunded federal agency, all but ensuring kids will be assigned these inherently dangerous jobs.

Kentucky is far from the only state at risk of dragging child labor standards to the 19th century. This is a coordinated, nationwide effort pushed by billionaire-backed corporate interest groups such as the Foundation for Government Accountability, a Florida-based think tank that frequently lobbies Kentucky lawmakers to erode the safety net and deplete worker protections. In the past three years, at least 28 states have seen bills that would weaken child labor laws so corporations can rely on cheap and compliant child workers rather than cut into their bottom lines to hire adults who need the work.

And this effort comes at a time when child labor complaints are exploding in Kentucky. In the four years between 2015 and 2018, Kentucky saw 73 federal child labor violations. That number increased by 1300% between 2019 and 2022. But instead of changing the law to better protect the kids exploited by these bad actors, HB 255 weakens it.

I’m glad I worked as a teen and support Kentuckians who want to do the same. But we learned a century ago that children need protections at work and that remains true today. Not every boss has the best intentions for our youngest workers, and I know firsthand what happens when we put kids in harm’s way.?

Republicans say they are protecting property rights. Gov. Andy Beshear says the legislature's override of his veto will allow those with disabilities, as well as our senior citizens, low-income families and homeless veterans,” (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

What would you do if you had billions of dollars to help meet the needs of your fellow Kentuckians? Would you use the money to address the teacher and bus driver shortages, build affordable housing or provide essential medical care to those who need it most? Or would you sit on an excessively large pile of cash, letting needs go unmet while the stockpile grows??

So far, the General Assembly has chosen the latter, allowing the state’s Budget Reserve Trust Fund, which is more commonly known as the rainy day fund, to grow to an astounding $3.7 billion. That total will reach $5 billion by next summer and could rise to nearly $8 billion by the end of the next two year budget period unless lawmakers make a different choice in 2024. Instead of continuing to hoard billions of dollars that could go toward improving people’s lives, they could use available recurring and one-time money to pass a budget that truly delivers for the people of Kentucky.

Kentucky, like nearly every other state, has seen strong tax revenue growth the last few years thanks to federal policies that stimulated a strong economic recovery. Unemployment is lower now than it’s been on record.??

That gives us the resources to do more. The rainy day fund has never been this large and is now much bigger than needed to protect against future downturns. Most experts say a rainy day fund with 15% of annual state revenues is a sufficient safeguard. If the legislature passes another continuation budget that leaves many needs unmet, billions more will be added over the next two years and the fund’s balance will reach nearly 50% of annual receipts.

That means the money is there to begin correcting years of disinvestment and start to build a better Kentucky.

Kentucky has still not restored many public services depleted by years of budget cuts after the Great Recession. Lack of funding leads to problems Kentuckians face every day: unaffordable rents, difficult to access drug treatment, children left without caregivers and grandparents ailing in uninspected nursing homes. Staggering cuts to higher education have meant more precarious and poorly paid adjunct teachers, and rising tuition that’s saddled hundreds of thousands of Kentuckians with debt.

The failure to adequately invest in public schools led to an ominous milestone this year as school funding inequity surpassed the levels that were declared unconstitutional in the late 1980s. The teacher shortage is worsening, and families across the commonwealth have felt the effects of the legislature’s refusal to fully fund public school transportation, with bus drivers exiting for much higher pay elsewhere. What good are record revenues if we’re not using them to meet basic needs??

The money is there to do much more for the victims of natural disasters in eastern and western Kentucky and help make communities more resilient before the next catastrophic storm hits. Meanwhile, the child care industry would have collapsed during the pandemic were it not for federal funding. But with that money expiring, the state must step up to ensure kids can keep learning and parents can keep working.

And the money is there to make a downpayment on bigger ambitions. We could begin building a universal pre-K program and to initiate a child tax credit program that could eventually slash child poverty. This is how we take advantage of this moment and start a path to transformational change.

With so many needs and money on the table, it’s logical to wonder why some lawmakers have said they aim to pass a budget that largely continues current inadequate spending levels. The explanation likely lies in House Bill 8, passed in 2022, which established a framework for cutting Kentucky’s income tax, our single largest source of state revenue.

The bill requires the state to build up the rainy day fund and keep budgets meager in order to reduce and eventually eliminate the income tax. But doing that would wipe out nearly half of the state’s budget while sending tens of thousands of dollars in tax breaks every year to millionaires.

If we want a Kentucky where every child has access to a great public school, our neighbors have a safe place to call home, and every Kentuckian, of every race, in every part of the state, has the freedom to live with dignity, the choice in 2024 is clear — our lawmakers must use money that’s already there to pass a budget that delivers for the people.