Child Labor Laws: This kid cannot be paid

Economics Economics Questions
1

I found this on Slashdot.

11 year-old Network Admin

It looks as if the school’s old network admin didn’t do very well and he was probably paid a decent salary too. But this kid will have to wait until he is 16 to get paid for his work and even then the hours will be limited and if someone determins that working with electrical things is dangerous, he won’t be able to legally work even then.

http://www.dol.gov/dol/topic/youthlabor/

…unless he did farm labor. I did farm labor as a kid and I do network stuff now as an adult. Networking is much safer than bailing hay, de-tasseling corn, and “picking rocks” (the worst job in the world that doesn’t involve a slaughterhouse) but is sometimes not as pleasant as “walking the beans”.

In an ideal world he would get paid and then when he is ready to go out on his own he would have about seven years of work experience at the age of 18 in a fairly high paying field. When I was 18 I worked for $3.75 an hour at a window factory.

I predict he will go far in spite of the oppressive labor laws that seemed to be mostly written for coal miners.

2

You must not understand: the purpose of government is to protect individuals from any desire to be productive.

3

until such time that he is mostly formed and it is too late.

Gvt gets the most benefit from dumbing down children, and keeping them lazy.

4

What if he did his network administration remotely - from a farm?

5

A brilliant idea.

Almost makes me want to buy a farm, hire smart kids and teenagers to work on it. But as a tech support /call center filled with kids who have easy to understand midwest accents…But I am sure I would be arrested for the crime of paying them to not drive an old Farmall tractor or pick cucumbers in the hot sun.

6

That’s easily solved! Build the break room a half-mile from the call center, and ask that employees use a (company-provided) tractor to get there.

If you want to be really safe, just require that each employee tend a potted peanut plant at his/her desk.

7

Very impressive kid. This kind of situation is pretty frustrating to me. Here is a kid with more talent than half the teacher’s in the school, who is called upon when something goes wrong with the computers, and he cannot be paid for help. He is not working in a coal mine for 14 hour days to put food on the table, he is succesfully managing the schools network, hardly an unhealthy task. This is completly unfair for the child, who is essentially being legally exploited by the unfair system set up by the government. The only good thing is that the kid will definetly get some recognition for his work and is very likely to have a highly successful career. Its too bad he is not allowed start his and make some money for his efforts when he is clearly capable of doing so.