What Happened?

If a kid in your family has a job, the federal agency in charge of keeping them safe is working with blind spots. Child labor violations and the number of children affected have been on the rise since fiscal year 2015, according to a new audit by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO). The Government Accountability Office (GAO) found gaps in the U.S. Department of Labor's data tools, outreach measurement, and coordination with other agencies.

An estimated 2.8 million children worked in the U.S. in 2023. That is roughly one child for every 26 adults in the workforce. Violations documented by DOL range from children working later than legally allowed to minors operating meat processing machines.

Why Does it Matter to Me?

The legal foundation for child labor protections dates to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) of 1938, which included provisions to protect the safety and health of working children under 18. Those rules exist to keep kids in school and out of harm's way, but the GAO found the agency responsible for enforcing them is working with incomplete information.

Some cause-of-death and industry information in DOL's workplace fatality dataset is not publicly available. The Department of Labor (DOL) changed how it collects injury and illness data for working children, which makes figures since 2021 incomparable to earlier years, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) audit found. If investigators cannot see where injuries and deaths are concentrated, they cannot direct resources to the industries and employers putting children at the greatest risk.

Both Sides, Now

The Department of Labor (DOL) recently launched a National Strategic Enforcement Initiative on Child Labor to sharpen its enforcement focus. The department pushed back on the GAO's data-gaps finding, suggesting it disputes at least part of the audit's conclusions.

The audit found that Department of Labor regional and district officials expressed concern that the data the agency recommended for targeting egregious violations were "not detailed enough to provide useful investigation leads," and that the agency has no systematic process to access alternative data sources. The audit also found that the Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division (WHD) lacks procedures to track and analyze questions from field offices about applying hazardous occupations orders, the rules that restrict minors from the most dangerous jobs, which limits its ability to update guidance based on real-world enforcement experience.

Congress set the original child labor standards through the FLSA and funds DOL's enforcement work through annual spending bills. That gives lawmakers the power to require stronger oversight, increase resources for investigations, or attach conditions to DOL's budget that compel the agency to act.

What Happens Next?

The GAO issued five recommendations, all directed to the Secretary of Labor. All five remain open. With DOL pushing back on the data-gaps finding and no concrete implementation plans on record, the pace of any reform remains unclear.

The Secretary of Labor has the authority to act on all five recommendations without a congressional vote. Congress could also hold oversight hearings or attach conditions to DOL's budget to push the agency toward compliance. No hearing or vote on this issue is currently scheduled, and until DOL responds formally to the GAO's findings, the enforcement gaps the audit identified remain in place.

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