I got my first job paying hourly wages at age sixteen at a summer resort near my parents’ cottage in Canada. Although you might think that mopping floors doesn’t teach much skill—and you would be right—showing up on time was an important skill. That wasn’t important for the mopping job because it began at 11 a.m., an easy target even for a late-sleeping teenager to hit. But later in the summer the chef at the resort, who saw me faithfully mopping and never slacking, hired me to work in the kitchen as the dishwasher. That job started at 8 a.m. and hitting that target was a challenge. I still remember my conversation with the chef after I had shown up at 8:15 a.m. each day for the first three days.
Chef: You need to use an alarm clock.
David: I do use an alarm clock.
Chef: What time do you set it for?
David: 7:30 a.m.
Chef: Then why don’t you make it on time?
David: When the alarm goes off, I turn it off and then go back to sleep.
Chef: That’s your mistake. You need to get up. If you aren’t on time tomorrow, don’t show up because you’re fired.
Any guesses whether I was ever late again?
This is from David R. Henderson, “Letting Teenagers Work” Defining Ideas, April 20, 2023.
In it, as you might guess, I make case for relaxing restrictions on work by teenagers, as is being done in Arkansas, New Jersey, and a few other states.
Another excerpt:
When my daughter was in third grade, I decided to coach a girls’ basketball team that she was on. Even when she got to middle school and played on her school’s team, I kept coaching other girls because I enjoyed it so much. But it did have its challenges. I remember one girl in particular who didn’t pay attention during timeouts to the plays I was trying to set up. She also didn’t seem to have much skill at dealing with people. She was, in short, high maintenance.
Fast forward about four or five years. One day I was checking out at the local Safeway and I noticed the checkout girl, who looked to be about age seventeen, being very pleasant and responsive. Something about her seemed familiar. Then I realized that it was that same girl. Her attitude was almost unrecognizable. Being in a job had taught her some very important skills: good attitude to customers and overall friendliness. You could say that having a job taught her to be more virtuous.
I end by quoting Emma Camp of Reason:
The aforementioned Emma Camp said it best and so I won’t try to say it better. She wrote, “We need to stop treating teenagers as inherently fragile, or they’ll become that way. Real-world exposure to the challenge of getting paid to do things that other people value will benefit them for the rest of their lives.”
Read the whole thing.
READER COMMENTS
Mark Barbieri
Apr 22 2023 at 9:18am
I didn’t realize that states had laws exploiting 14 year olds political vulnerability to block them from getting jobs. I grew up in a well off area in Texas and most kids I knew started working at 12 doing babysitting, watching people pets, and stuff like that. At 14, we got “real” jobs, mostly at fast food places. I worked in a church nursery taking care of young children and worked at a local pizza joint.
None of my friends came from families that needed our money. We wanted jobs to have spending money. Well, some kids were more interested in getting a “hardship license”, which was a drivers license given to 14 and 15 year olds that needed to drive to get to work.
I remember on my first day of work at the pizza place, the boss asked me to walk around the building picking up trash. He was very apologetic about asking me to do it, which I found very strange. It obviously needed to be done and who would be better suited for a task like that than a new employee not trained to do anything more valuable.
David Henderson
Apr 22 2023 at 10:40am
You wrote:
Well said, Mark.
You wrote:
Ditto. Our family’s income was probably just a hair below the median, but my father never insisted that I contribute money I started to earn, as early as age 8, to the family budget.
You wrote:
Good point. My first regular job was at the seasonal fast food place near our house. The owner paid me 50 cents per day to clean the outdoor premises the first morning, pick up garbage that customers had thrown on the road within 2 or 3 blocks of the place (internalizing externalities, by the way), and then incinerating the trash. The work took anywhere from 30 to 45 minutes. The commute was approximately 1 minute. When I ran into him in my home town on my father/daughter trip in about 1989, we reminisced about it and he told me that if I had bargained him to 75 cents, he would have accepted. Things I didn’t know as a 12-year-old.
Dylan
Apr 22 2023 at 9:55am
Good piece. I’m supportive of relaxing rules to allow teenagers more flexibility to work and am generally not too concerned about the downsides you name. I think employers will be unlikely to hire young teenagers in dangerous environments, as accidents are costly. And, there are other more targeted remedies against a teenager being forced to work against their will by a parent or guardian.
I found the paper you linked to on the positive correlation between senior year employment and later wages pretty interesting, particularly the decline over the time period measured. My hunch is that we would see this trend continue if the paper is updated for a younger cohort. College, at least top tier ones, are so competitive to get into these days that kids don’t have time to work after all the extracurriculars they take on. And, I’d imagine that many of the life skills that you get on a job are also learned through varsity supports and volunteer activities.
David Henderson
Apr 22 2023 at 10:43am
Thanks, Dylan. Good points in your first paragraph.
I’m not sure about your reasoning in the second paragraph. It is true that the extracurriculars would cut into time otherwise spent working, but it’s hard to see how that would affect the pay differential later. Maybe selection bias? That is, the ones who do more extracurriculars instead of working are the counterparts of the ones in the earlier cohorts who got the most out of working.
Dylan
Apr 22 2023 at 5:21pm
Thanks for the response. My hypothesis is that working in high school used to be more egalitarian. As Mark mentioned, all of his friends worked even though they didn’t strictly need the money. I’m guessing I’m younger than Mark, and when I went to school that didn’t seem to be as much the case. I’d estimate that only about half of my friends worked during the school year (slightly more had summer jobs) and those that worked were concentrated among those that needed to. Kids from wealthier families seemed less likely to work and more likely to play sports, be in band, volunteer.
From what I’ve seen anecdotally, that trend has continued, particularly for any student that is elite college bound. Since those students tend to also have significantly higher starting salaries and lifetime earnings than those that go to less prestigious schools, I’m predicting that there would be a negative correlation between earnings and working during high school.
So yes, basically selection bias and a change in the signalling model which prioritizes non-paid extracurriculars as a signal over a job at McDonald’s.
Thomas Hutcheson
Apr 23 2023 at 8:06am
One would think that employment would count as least as much as sports for college admission.
Jon Murphy
Apr 23 2023 at 10:11am
One would think, but that would require the assumption that universities are for education and building skills rather than being a minor league system for the 4 major sports leagues.
(Forgive the sarcasm here. I am in 100% agreement with you)
steve
Apr 22 2023 at 10:50am
Indiana, or my hometown, had odd rules. While I was working on the farm very early and first paper route at 11 or 12, at 14 you could only do fast food so I did that (though now that I think about it I dont know if that was a local rule or just what the local companies decided). At 16 you could work at some better paying jobs so moved on to stock boy at a Woolworth’s. It was financial necessity but it did teach you a lot. Makes you much more time efficient. (Cant believe you got to lay in bed til 7:30.)
On the issue of abuse I would say it happens. People who hire kids arent especially more or less virtuous than others, but you see the same in athletics, education and the church. If your goal is to never have your kids abused dont send them to school, church or do sports. The rewards are worth the risk and if you dont think your kid is ready dont let them work until you do.
Steve
David Henderson
Apr 22 2023 at 12:00pm
Well said, steve, especially your last paragraph. I wish I had made that point in the article. 🙂
Re lying in bed until 7:30, there are 2 things to note. First, I was alone in my cottage for that part of the summer (basically, August) and second, it was the summer. During the school year, I got up at about 7.
Re newspaper route, that was the only part-time job I HATED. I had it for only about 4 to 6 weeks and then I quit. That was about when I was 12.
Jon Murphy
Apr 22 2023 at 10:54am
Good stuff. My first job was as a busboy in a local restaurant. By the time I graduated high school, I was effectively a second manager (I ran the take-out side of the business: set schedules, had money responsibilities, and even had limited authority to issue refunds and deal with customer complaints). To this day, I still hear my old boss’s voice in my head, giving me advice and directing me as I pursue my own career.
Walter Boggs
Apr 22 2023 at 12:40pm
When I was a teen, my father arranged a job for me in a local cotton mill. I lasted exactly one night shift, resolving to avoid factory work in future if I could. Years later, my dad told me this was why he had set up the job.
I retired in 2020 after a long and lucrative career in tech. I’m glad I was able to thank my father for this great lesson while he was around.
Tom Larkin
Apr 24 2023 at 8:50pm
The summer after I graduated from high school my dad got me a job as a laborer with a construction company in Baton Rouge LA. Another word for laborer is ditchdigger – it is not fun at the bottom of a ditch in Baton Rouge in the summer! Truly a great way to show your kid the value of an education. I stuck it out, but it was pretty motivational.
Peter
Apr 22 2023 at 3:27pm
Started work at 14 myself as we were abject poor and while I agree it taught excellent life skills and really don’t think child labor laws should exist period, as a parent of teens now I do my best to discourage them from working. You got your entire life to work and they are facing at a minimum fifty more years of meaningless toil, no need to rush it. Enjoy being a carefree youth while you can.
David Henderson
Apr 22 2023 at 4:21pm
Hmmm. I’m glad you don’t believe in laws against child labor. I disagree that your kids will face 50 years of meaningless toil, unless they make bad choices. Working early can help them make better choices.
steve
Apr 23 2023 at 9:58am
Peter- I totally get that. For a lot of people it was a learning experience but when you are poor it means you get to eat so you worked because you needed to work. Actually sometimes what I brought home was used to pay rent and we still didnt eat. Still, I did learn a lot and I think it helped me have a successful career where I had more of a choice about what I wanted to do so I could avoid 50 years of meaningless toil. So while I think I understand the idea of not wanting your kids to have to work, think of it as a learning experience for them so they have a better shot at doing what they want.
As an aside I do think that growing up poor helps turn you into a workaholic. Most of my fellow docs come from a relatively affluent background but the few of us who did not are all overworkers.
Peter
Apr 24 2023 at 8:12am
Have to disagree with both of you on this one. The overwhelming vast majority of people engage in drudgery, some are just lucky enough to convince themselves they prefer that over a life of leisure. I think I have met maybe seven people in my entire fifty years that would have engaged in their life’s work still had they won infinite money at eighteen, four of them were ex medical doctors and two were independently inherited wealthy who just worked as labors of love for peanuts. The overwhelming masses personal hobby and entertainment preferences won’t feed them and even fewer will have a meaningful impact that will be remembered centuries hence on their company or in their field hence my point. I’d wager the vast majority of the population would happily forgo work completely as adults to watch tv all day, doomscroll, travel, fish, get high/drunk, etc. People work because they have too for the most part.
I’d rather my children, and TBH most children, enjoy their youth as long as they can if they do choose.
dennis e miller
Apr 24 2023 at 6:06pm
“…watch tv all day, doomscroll, travel, fish, get high/drunk, etc…”
Wow, talk about a boring life. I would never want to while away the hours like that. Some people seemed to be wired that way, but I think a majority of us like to invest some of our time accomplishing things, usually things that impact others in positive ways. This gives a lot more meaning to life than self-indulging “pleasures” in my opinion. Now that I’m retired I volunteer time at a local non-profit thrift shop run by Mennonites where little of the money goes to salaries and mostly to food, housing and clothing for the 3rd world. I also volunteer at church and am available to lend a hand to people who need help. And of course I spend time on various hobbies that actually keep my brain and body in better condition. Avoiding working up a sweat is about the most boring life I can imagine. But then I guess that’s just me (and a whole lot of other people I know).
Jon Murphy
Apr 25 2023 at 7:17am
Peter,
You are right that people work because they have to. That’s a fact of life since that unfortunate event in the Garden of Eden.
But the fact that people have to work doesn’t imply that people are condemned to a life of drudgery. I’d wager that most people find meaning in work. As evidence, I present the fact that most people work well and beyond what they need to sustain a life of leisure. For example, many retired folks will still work to stave off boredom.
Of course, none of this is to say that drudgery doesn’t exist. All jobs will have elements of drudgery in them. You take the good with the bad.
But it’s highly unlikely that, as you say, “the vast majority of the population would happily forgo work completely as adults to watch tv all day, doomscroll, travel, fish, get high/drunk, etc.” We’re that the case, humanity never would have advanced beyond our most primitive stages. We are a dynamic, intelligent species.
BS
Apr 22 2023 at 9:05pm
Earnings were pocket money. Early practical lesson in one quadrant of Friedman’s four ways to spend money.
john hare
Apr 23 2023 at 5:43am
Somewhere in there I think the point is made that people that don’t learn to work early have to learn later on when it is more painful. Losing a part time job at 15 costs spending money. Losing a full time job at 25 can cost the car and rent payments. As an employer, I’ve met far too many younger people (20s) that are irresponsible and self righteous about it.
And from my observation, ones that don’t learn responsibility are more likely to have legal problems.
My first full time was the summer I was 11 and my parents got the paycheck. Then dropped out working full time from 12 and didn’t start getting my own paycheck until years later. I don’t recommend that extreme.
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