1.7 million Children Working
September 17, 1914 Written by: Staci Stillmunkes
Wages so low children are forced to work!!
Since the wages are so low and hours are so high parents alone cannot make enough money to support their family, so in order to survive the children go out and find work. Even still its hard to make money because children are payed less than adults, only making 50 to 60 cents a day. Also the kids work on average 72 hours a week which is a 14-16 hour work day. There were masses of children in the work forces 1 out of every 5 kids between the ages of 10 and 15 were wage workers.
Not only were the work weeks horribly long but the work conditions were extremely dangerous. Employers had kids working jobs that should have gone to adults only because they could be paid less. Machines were big and sharp which is easy to cut a finger or two off. It was normal to see this happen. An example of child labor is the mining. These boys would inhale great amounts of coal dust damaging their lungs and causing illness. Also the boys would handle harmful chemicals without the proper protection which would cause their fingers to swell and bleed.
Follow up
Problem Solved
After these horrible conditions where brought to light by us muckrakers Congress thought the act was unconstitutional but changed their minds after the great depression. The Fair Labor Standard act of 1938 was passes which had minimal wage, maximum hours and how old you could be to work and what jobs kids could have included in in.