Trump DOL Cuts and State Bills Threaten Child Labor Protections

Renewed statehouse efforts to loosen child labor restrictions are pairing up with the Trump administration’s federal staff cuts to cast new doubt on the future effectiveness of child labor law enforcement.

Florida, Ohio, and West Virginia lawmakers are among those considering bills to relax the limits on employment of minors in 2025, mirroring state proposals that spread widely over the past two years. At the same time, President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency has identified 21 offices for closure within the Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division, which enforces federal child labor laws. Five of those offices are in states that recently passed or are considering rollbacks of their own child labor restrictions—Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, and Washington state.

All together, the moves complicate compliance efforts for employers accustomed to an emphasis on child labor enforcement under the Biden administration. Some state proposals also conflict with federal limits under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

“If we have fewer offices and places that make the Wage and Hour Division accessible to workers and to employers, then you’re going to have potentially real challenges with making sure the federal child labor laws are followed,” said Jessica Looman, who led the division under the Biden administration.

Even before Trump’s cuts, staffing shortages and case backlogs made it tough for the DOL to adequately enforce restrictions on youth employment.

Opponents of the state proposals argue they’ll potentially push teens toward working late hours on school nights and threaten to increase high-school dropout rates. They also say eliminating youth work permit requirements, as West Virginia’s bill does, takes away a key tool for state regulators to monitor underage employment and ensure minors aren’t performing physically hazardous duties that state and federal laws restrict.

“This is just gonna be a disaster for us in an education and economic sense,” said Alexis Tsoukalas, senior policy analyst at the Florida Policy Institute.

The statehouse proposals coincide with increases in child labor violations, including the discovery of underage immigrants working overnight shifts cleaning dangerous machinery in meatpacking plants.

Supporters say the rollbacks help young people gain work experience and businesses fill staffing shortages. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) told reporters in March that increasing youth employment could replace migrant workers being pushed out through more aggressive immigration enforcement.

The National Federation of Independent Business is one of the industry associations supporting some state proposals, partly to help small businesses deal with “hiring challenges.”

The Florida proposals “open the hiring pool for small employers to hire younger workers and invest in these employees with on-the-job training,” said Tim Nungesser, NFIB’s Florida legislative director.

Uncertain Priorities

Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer hasn’t declared child labor enforcement a high priority, as Biden’s DOL did, said Catherine T. Barbieri, an employment attorney at Fox Rothschild LLP.

“The child labor laws were passed in part to ensure the children would receive an education and not be working in hazardous conditions,” she said. “It will be helpful at some point when we get a better sense of the labor secretary’s priorities, perhaps after her listening tour.”

Barbieri added she’s seen the current Trump DOL continue investigating and fining employers under child labor laws, although without issuing press releases to announce those efforts.

In Trump’s second term, the Labor Department canceled at least $577 million in grants meant to prevent child and forced labor internationally—drawing a court challenge by advocates. The Project 2025 policy document also calls for the DOL to ease restrictions against hazardous work by minors in the US “with proper training and parental consent.”

Those examples represent “two alarm bells that may point us in a discouraging direction,” said Karla Walter, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.

“Generally, we have relied on the feds to do a lot of child labor enforcement work,” said Reid Maki, coordinator at the advocacy group Child Labor Coalition, who said state enforcement remains limited.

The DOL didn’t respond to a request for comment.

State-Federal Conflicts

Florida bills proposing to ease work-hour limits for some 14- and 15-year-olds could differ from federal law, depending on the final bill text lawmakers pass before their session’s scheduled end May 2.

“Even if a state adopts a less restrictive child labor law, employers are still required to comply with the federal law if it is more protective,” Looman said. “It creates a lot of confusion for employers because they don’t have the information access or ability to navigate how to comply with the federal law and the state law.”

Ohio lawmakers are considering a similar bill to loosen work hours limits, and Washington state enacted a law this month easing work hour restrictions for 16- and 17-year-olds enrolled in college or career training.

The DOL reported in 2024 at least two child labor cases where Utah employers thought they were in compliance by following weaker state rules. Utah lawmakers subsequently revised the work-hour limits for 14- and 15-year-olds to align better with federal law.

The latest statehouse proposals follow a bevy of changes since 2023, such as Alabama and Arkansas eliminating youth work permit requirements and Iowa rolling back hazardous work limits. Those Iowa changes conflicted with federal law, Looman said in a 2023 letter.

The rollbacks plus news of high-profile violations motivated some states to increase penalties and strengthen protections, including Colorado, Illinois, and Virginia. Arkansas both eliminated its youth permit requirements and increased penalties.