> And I'm dismayed by the cavalier dismissal of lost jobs for teenagers.
The way Geneva handles their minimum wage (almost $27/hr) is to have exceptions for apprentices and au-pairs under 18. That au-pairs will eventually become older than 18 is obvious; what is less obvious is that companies taking apprentices share responsibility for their education, so I believe if too many of their apprentices fail the final exams, the company loses the ability to take new ones.
If you can only afford to hire someone if they're being subsidized by their parents, then the job position you're offering should either not exist or the subsidy should be made explicit. If our civilization's entry-level positions require five years of internships then we should, as a civilization, figure out a way for people to hold internships for five years and expect every single human alive to go through that process.
> And I'm dismayed by the cavalier dismissal of lost jobs for teenagers. Getting that first job is hard enough already
And almost all of these "starter jobs" are filled with abusive and exploitative working conditions, made possible by the (literal!) kids not knowing that they don't have to mop up feces in a toilet without proper training and equipment or that they aren't supposed to work late night hours (at least in some jurisdiction). Good f...ing riddance, I'd say.
I held a number of low-paid jobs while in high school and college. I can't say that dealing with cooking grease was enjoyable, but in no case can I say that the working conditions were abusive.
Teenage labor participation is at some of the lowest levels ever. Most teenagers who would have otherwise gotten jobs, are now trying to do things to pad out their college applications. My suspicion is that you would have a hard time paying low wages to teeneagers at the moment.
Even a few percentage points extra would be a big positive to society, since presumably the teenagers will learn real world lessons at a faster rate than padding out college applications.
Obviously there's a mismatch between "first job for teenagers" and "job I need to pay my rent and maybe provide for my kids". This would be less of a problem if more of the jobs paid better. But you can only scoop ice cream or bag groceries for people who have enough money to pay for them.
And I'm dismayed by the cavalier dismissal of lost jobs for teenagers. Getting that first job is hard enough already
(https://econjwatch.org/File+download/1296/GreenHandMar2024.p...)