During the Covid debacle, kids were locked out of school or otherwise condemned to an inferior Zoom education for up to two years. What were the alternatives? Unfortunately, since the New Deal, the federal government has severely restricted teenagers’ opportunities for gainful employment. But new evidence proves that keeping kids out of work doesn’t keep them out of mental health trouble.
Yet suggesting that kids take a job has become controversial in recent years. It is easy to find expert lists on the dangers of teenage employment. Evolve Treatment Center, a California therapy chain for teenagers, recently listed the possible “cons” of work:
- Jobs can add stress to a child’s life.
- Jobs can expose kids to people and situations they might not be ready for.
- A teen working a job might feel like childhood is ending too soon.
But stress is a natural part of life. Dealing with strange characters or ornery bosses can speedily teach kids far more than they learn from a droning public school teacher. And the sooner childhood ends, the sooner young adults can experience independence – one of the great propellants of personal growth.
When I came of age in the 1970s, nothing was more natural than seeking to earn a few bucks after school or during the summer. I was terminally bored in high school and jobs provided one of the few legal stimulants I found in those years.
Thanks to federal labor law, I was effectively banned from non-agricultural work before I turned 16. For two summers, I worked at a peach orchard five days a week, almost ten hours a day, pocketing $1.40 an hour and all the peach fuzz I took home on my neck and arms. Plus, there was no entertainment surcharge for the snakes I encountered in trees while a heavy metal bucket of peaches swung from my neck.
Actually, that gig was good preparation for my journalism career since I was always being cussed by the foreman. He was a retired 20-year Army drill sergeant who was always snarling, always smoking, and always coughing. The foreman never explained how to do a task since he preferred vehemently cussing you afterwards for doing it wrong. “What-da-hell’s-wrong-with-you-Red?” quickly became his standard refrain.
No one who worked in that orchard was ever voted “Most Likely to Succeed.” But one co-worker provided me with a lifetime of philosophical inspiration, more or less. Albert, a lean 35-year-old who always greased his black hair straight back, had survived plenty of whiskey-induced crashes on life’s roller coaster.
Back in those days, young folks were browbeaten to think positively about institutions that domineered their lives (such as military conscription). Albert was a novelty in my experience: a good-natured person who perpetually scoffed. Albert’s reaction to almost everything in life consisted of two phrases: “That really burns my ass!” or “No Shit!”
After I turned 16, I worked one summer with the Virginia Highway Department. As a flag man, I held up traffic while highway employees idled away the hours. On hot days in the back part of the county, drivers sometimes tossed me a cold beer as they passed by. Nowadays, such acts of mercy might spark an indictment. The best part of the job was wielding a chainsaw—another experience that came in handy for my future career.
I did “roadkill ride-alongs” with Bud, an amiable, jelly-bellied truck driver who was always chewing the cheapest, nastiest ceegar ever made—Swisher Sweets. The cigars I smoked cost a nickel more than Bud’s, but I tried not to put on airs around him.
We were supposed to dig a hole to bury any dead animal along the road. This could take half an hour or longer. Bud’s approach was more efficient. We would get our shovels firmly under the animal—wait until no cars were passing by—and then heave the carcass into the bushes. It was important not to let the job crowd the time available for smoking.
I was assigned to a crew that might have been the biggest slackers south of the Potomac and east of the Alleghenies. Working slowly to slipshod standards was their code of honor. Anyone who worked harder was viewed as a nuisance, if not a menace.
The most important thing I learned from that crew was how not to shovel. Any Yuk-a-Puk can grunt and heave material from Spot A to Spot B. It takes practice and savvy to turn a mule-like activity into an art.
To not shovel right, the shovel handle should rest above the belt buckle while one leans slightly forward. It’s important not to have both hands in your pockets while leaning, since that could prevent onlookers from recognizing “Work-in-Progress.” The key is to appear to be studiously calculating where your next burst of effort will provide maximum returns for the task.
One of this crew’s tasks that summer was to build a new road. The assistant crew foreman was indignant: “Why does the state government have us do this? Private businesses could build the road much more efficiently, and cheaper, too.” I was puzzled by his comment, but by the end of the summer I heartily agreed. The Highway Department could not competently organize anything more complex than painting stripes in the middle of a road. Even the placement of highway direction signs was routinely botched.
While I easily acclimated to government work lethargy, I was pure hustle on Friday nights unloading trucks full of boxes of old books at a local bindery. That gig paid a flat rate, in cash, that usually worked out to double or triple the Highway Department wage.
The goal with the Highway Department was to conserve energy, while the goal at the book bindery was to conserve time—to finish as quickly as possible and move on to weekend mischief. With government work, time routinely acquired a negative value—something to be killed.
The key thing kids must learn from their first jobs is to produce enough value that someone will voluntarily pay them a wage. I worked plenty of jobs in my teen years – baling hay, cutting lawns, and hustling on construction sites. I knew I’d need to pay my own way in life and those jobs got me in the habit of saving early and often.
But according to today’s conventional wisdom, teenagers should not be put at risk in any situation where they might harm themselves. The enemies of teenage employment rarely admit how the government’s “fixes” routinely do more harm than good. My experience with the highway department helped me quickly recognize the perils of government employment and training programs.
Those programs have been spectacularly failing for more than half a century. In 1969, the General Accounting Office (GAO) condemned federal summer jobs programs because youth “regressed in their conception of what should reasonably be required in return for wages paid.”
In 1979, GAO reported that the vast majority of urban teens in the program “were exposed to a worksite where good work habits were not learned or reinforced, or realistic ideas on expectations in the real world of work were not fostered.” In 1980, Vice President Mondale’s Task Force on Youth Unemployment reported, “Private employment experience is deemed far more attractive to prospective employers than public work” because of the bad habits and attitudes spurred by government programs.
“Make work” and “fake work” are a grave disservice to young people. But the same problems permeated programs in the Obama era. In Boston, federally-subsidized summer job workers donned puppets to greet visitors to an aquarium. In Laurel, Maryland, “Mayor’s Summer Jobs” participants put in time serving as a “building escort.” In Washington, D.C., kids were paid to diddle with “schoolyard butterfly habitats” and littered the streets with leaflets about the Green Summer Job Corps. In Florida, subsidized summer job participants “practiced firm handshakes to ensure that employers quickly understand their serious intent to work,” the Orlando Sentinel reported. And folks wonder why so many young people cannot comprehend the meaning of “work.”
Cosseting kids has been a jobs program for social workers but a disaster for the supposed beneficiaries. Teen labor force participation (for ages 16 to 19) declined from 58 percent in 1979 to 42 percent in 2004 and roughly 35 percent in 2018. It’s not like, instead of finding a job, kids stay home and read Shakespeare, master Algebra, or learn to code.
As teens became less engaged in society via work, mental health problems became far more prevalent. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that in “the 10 years leading up to the pandemic, feelings of persistent sadness and hopelessness—as well as suicidal thoughts and behaviors—increased by about 40 percent among young people.”
The troubled teen years are producing dark harvests on campus. Between 2008 and 2019, the number of undergraduate students diagnosed with anxiety increased by 134 percent, 106 percent for depression, 57 percent for bipolar disorder, 72 percent for ADHD, 67 percent for schizophrenia, and 100 percent for anorexia, according to the National College Health Assessment.
Those rates are much worse post-pandemic. As psychiatrist Thomas Szasz observed, “The greatest analgesic, soporific, stimulant, tranquilizer, narcotic, and to some extent even antibiotic – in short, the closest thing to a genuine panacea – known to medical science is work.”
Those who fret about the dangers that teens face on the job need to recognize the “opportunity cost” of young adults perpetuating their childhood and their dependence. Sure, there are perils in the workplace. But as Thoreau wisely observed, “A man sits as many risks as he runs.”
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I lied about my age at 14 1/2 and got a job as a “scab” during a supermarket employee strike. Made $3.8625 an hour when the minimum wage was $2.25. Made time and a half routinely, and triple time for part of the 4th of July. Best money ever.. Worked at McDonald’s for way less a coupleof years later,, but made .25 extra for working closing shift. Learned a great work ethic, worked really hard, and realized why I wanted something more out of life. But ultimately I learned that every job gives you skills, and experience that comes in useful down the road. Simply disgusting watching the bottom rungs of the ladder of success constantly being knocked off before people can climb them though minimum wage increases. Even worse is watching teenagers NOT getting jobs and life skills because they are too lazy or spoiled.
MrLiberty,
In 83, after four years working part time and proving myself as (what was called back in that day) a ‘Store Detective’ for a wealthy tiny hat family (I never met any of them – just their former Mick Army E-6 head of their Security (who I became a close friend of) I was offered a position managing the picket line in front of one of their 5 stores in central Jersey…with a supposed vicious contract settling STRIKE coming from the MEAT SLICERS UNION….to test management’s will for the other four store’s contracts.
Word was the Union was gonna play HE double LL! All Scabs would be stopped from coming in.
Everyone knew I was their No.1 shoplifter apprehender, and I had also proven to be their most successful occasional fearless bouncer in their 5 man crew. I was also the only one out of the 5 into Judo – which was perfect for lifters and other loudmouth fools…but I was also the only Nam Vet out of the 5…and who the punks in the hood (that was where all five stores were) soon realized all their Muhamad Ali mouths soon ended up on the ground after a foot sweep…then in a choke hold or an arm bar. I never punched one…but the ground was always my friend I introduced them to it as hard as I could.
The Security Manager had hired a squad of well paid No Neck Goons (mostly black as the customers were mostly black) I would lead. Our first meeting was epic as they were well screened and paid in cash every day through me. I coulda been their football coach at halftime for the State championship.
My job was to make sure the customers and the Scabs got in and out without being UNION harassed. It involved one serious confrontation after another.
It turned out to be two weeks of the most intense fun I had-had (up until that time on a job) getting paid to be Billy Martin running up to the umpire – up to that stage of my 33 years.
By the end of the first week I and the huge big bellied Meat Cutter Shop Steward (they were mostly white) ended up alone a number of times…we came to a mutual understanding/respect level that would have pissed off both our bosses if it was made public what we said to one another alone.
I really got to like him…he was a great guy once we got past our roles.
Evidently he had me checked out and found out I was for real…he told me that…and a few other things about stirkes and contracts as he had close to 20 years on me.
This could have gone ugly ways…But what a BLAST!
Talk about eventual picket line Kabuki Theater…ALL THE WORLD IS A STAGE…and now and then the actors get along…without meaning to.
Just curious…Mr. Liberity…former Scab…(I’m a former Scab protector) remember the poem I put up about Memorial Day…that Admin made a separate post of…back in the day…cuz I was in Nam and it was the truth…and the post you put up saying… “I would never being forgiven”?
Just wondering?
Bada Bing Bada Boom…MrLiberty…I never forgot that kick in balls (as one old timer said on that post after you did it)…just saying.
That’s it MrLiberty?
You’re not going to wish me ‘Happy Memorial Day’ for my eternal damnation…according to you?
I started in a grocery store for $1.70 an hour in 1972. After a year I worked up the courage to ask the store owner for a raise, and he gave me one to $2.00. About a week later when the pay raise showed up, I learned the minimum wage had been raised to $2.00 and every minimum wage worker got the raise, he gave me nothing but what he was mandated to do by the government!
Needing a job because you need the money and having that job is the best lesson a kid can learn.
The life lesson applies to more than teens. We have become a country of deadbeats.
Get and job go to church.
That is a good start (independent of you age).
The church doors are always open and you no longer have to be competent to land a job.
For us it was about tough love. We told ours you have until 20 to move out. They did. It’s a hard thing to do but they have to face life. We are there as a back drop, but after they get out on their own, the last place they want to live is with mom and dad. Coddling is the wors’t thing a parent can do for their children (IMO) unless there are unusual circumstances.
Damn been working since I was 12, didn’t know about the benefit of gov work, so I have been stupidly working (actually) for over 30+ years. Got the back pain to prove it
When I was 10, I was pushing a mower up and down the neighborhood streets looking for yards to mow. usually, it was an older widow who would pay me $.50 or $1.00 to mow her large lot. It would take about 2 hours and they always had a cold drink & something sweet to eat at the end. By the time I was 12, I had picked up a couple of commercial accounts that paid much better, but I still mowed the widow’s yards.
Hard work build character and character makes a man.
Almost the same here,but the snow shovel came before the mower
Started my short mowing “career” when our neighbor, a recent widow, came and asked my mom if she could hire me to mow her lawn. I think I was 11 at the time. Got the next door neighbor’s lawn after that. Hard work never hurt anyone, even a pre-teen.
My advice to kids today is “learn a trade”. In my generation the advice was “get a degree”. How things change.
In highschool I went from cutting grass for the park system, to tearing tickets at the movie theater, to prepping cars at the Ford dealer. Then it was Air Force avionics tech. After AF it was machine operator at a book-bindery. In college it was industrial electrician, crawling around under buildings dragging cables. After one summer I drew a line in the sand and threw away my boots, determining I would succeed with the degree and not rely on manual labor to fill the gaps any more.
These days I am reverting back to manual labor and skills learned over a lifetime, while relying on the degree to fill the gaps. Never did I ever think that ‘getting small’ would be so enjoyable. In life, you can spread yourself too thin and make far too many compromises in chasing after riches, safety, and comfort.
OMG – the toxic masculinity here almost too much to take …. LOL …. /s/
Pops said I could not work the carnival ‘ games of chance ‘ stores , but I could work the food stands.
Got a a job at the rowdyest / wildest bar & grill around in the ‘ food ‘ section.
I was standing in for the bouncer by age 16.
HELLO Ladies … right this way ….
I had a job at 16 that was above minimum wage. I have had various jobs until I got laid off in 2002. I was in the IT field and could not buy a job. It has been shit since.
Great stories from everyone. I could add to it. But I’ll just say the only time you lose is when you do nothing. The work and people skills you get from menial jobs goes a long way and it makes life as a senior easy.
I think the best life lesson for teens at this point is to fight trannies.
In elementary school, picked up Coke bottles along State St./US 51, 2¢/bottle, made $1-2/wk. Mowed yards in the mid 60s. $2-4 per, depending on size. Unloaded boxcars in college for my cousin, paper products. $1.25/hr.
Hit the jackpot in 1973, tutored athletes for $3.50/hr. Made $250 for making an A on a correspondence school test. Was flown into Conway, AR for that.
Nest year made $5/hr. doing the same during my MBA years. Looked down the hall on the 2nd floor of Coleman, Gawd told me to come in. Left 90 seconds later, very shook. Southerners will understand whom I’m talking about.
If a young man leaving high school early can’t pay off a house on minimum wage in 20yrs while raising, feeding and securing a little family and having a Sunday picnic via car out in the wilderness then there is something seriously wrong with the “state” of affairs.
I left school early(80s)because I was fed up seeing my friends disposal(parental giveaways)income buying shit I could never dream of even a bag of hot chips. While they were finishing high school which led them to higher income potential I was slogging it out in factories on minimum wage never going anywhere just trying to survive. Most kids these days see the cost of living and think fuck what’s the point. This isn’t mental illness in fact it’s a sane assessment of the ‘state” of affairs. I don’t care for the Neoliberalism safety ideology I think it’s a scam for insurance purposes but I do care that young working male and female’s leaving high school early don’t get a fair go. Progress has never been about wealth it’s always been about raising that little family without impeding on that progress no matter what wage you’re on.
I tend to agree, see my comments above. Us oldsters tend to think kids have no aspirations, but what a f*d up mess they are dealing with. My 20-something daughter has a 4×4, and wants to build her own house, paid for by her tech income. Not a bad plan, honestly. She lives with her mom as a means to save quicker rather than laziness. I might do it differently but staying out of debt is her #1 priority, can’t argue with that.
When your operation is large enough to require that kind of biosecurity, I shudder to think what lessons can be learned from such a godless place.
I remember my kids figuring out their first paycheck on hours worked x per hour. They opened their pay envelopes an cried loudly “this is all wrong”! After that I gave them a great life lesson on taxes. That is where the missing money went. And they made so little about all they paid was SS and Medicare taxes, no Federal or State.
They learned all taxes are theft, and voting for more theft makes no sense!
My first job was picking peaches for $1.00 an hour in 1971. That is NOT a job you want to show up for in a short sleeves.