Without laws letting child workers maintain their own bank account in their own name without parents being co owners allowed to drain it at any time, children working become money pinatas for abusive parents.
I say this as someone who would have benefitted from being independent earlier. My uncle did have me work at 14, and when I went to the bank I found he had stolen every penny, and because I was a minor I had no legal recourse to get it back.
A few years later the courts emancipated me, but it didn’t return the money he had stolen. Mind you, he was not working at the time himself and he got a few hundred from the state a month to care for me, and he spent what he stole on computer parts so he could game.
Children working only is in the child’s benefit if there are ironclad laws allowing them to keep their money, and right now there is not.
Without laws letting child workers maintain their own bank account in their own name without parents being co owners allowed to drain it at any time, children working become money pinatas for abusive parents.
I say this as someone who would have benefitted from being independent earlier. My uncle did have me work at 14, and when I went to the bank I found he had stolen every penny, and because I was a minor I had no legal recourse to get it back.
A few years later the courts emancipated me, but it didn’t return the money he had stolen. Mind you, he was not working at the time himself and he got a few hundred from the state a month to care for me, and he spent what he stole on computer parts so he could game.
Children working only is in the child’s benefit if there are ironclad laws allowing them to keep their money, and right now there is not.