In Westfield, New Jersey,, as a community we want to lead every child in a good direction. We want the best for our teenagers. To get them on the right path and have the best goals for a successful living, they need to realize how important it is to have a job and understand the meaning of money. The money teenagers in Westfield earn now can reflect on their future. The earlier teenagers start and participate in a job, the quicker teens can realize how important their responsibility is. It is important for a community like Westfield to start our kids on the right path and lead them towards success. For these certain teens we need to push them to experience responsibility which can turn their life around. Instead of allowing 14 year olds to do limited work in Westfield, we need to encourage teens to get up and get a head start on their lives at a young age. “Though the number of employment opportunities continues to decline, nearly 80 percent of teens say they want to work, and some 1.9 million 15- to 17-year-olds actually held gigs in 2009. For those lucky (and cunning) enough to find work, it can mean so much more than a paycheck.Your child will begin to interact with coworkers, and possibly customers, and as a result, gain knowledge about how the workplace operates," says Beverly F. Slomka, author of Teens and the Job Game” (iUniverse).”It's important that kids take their first job seriously and understand that it's a stepping stone to bigger things later on." Anticipating the problems that a kid might run into in a new venture—and taking preventive measures to avoid them—will help your young worker get off on the right foot.”(Halpern,Ashlea)
This is a problem for teens occurring all through out New Jersey, not just Westfield. . There are teens in every single town in New Jersey who need to get a head start on their lives. We think the best way for teens to get on the right path is by taking responsibility for themselves and get a job.(Halpern, Ashlea) We need our laws about teen jobs to be more flexible for more people in New Jersey. It is important to the teenager, their family, their community and our state.
This problem is within normal families, but we need the government’s help, too.. Our government is always telling us to invest in our future, but by limiting the working rights of teens, it takes away an opportunity to invest in our future. In a 1995 National Bureau of Economic Research working paper, it was shown that high school seniors who were employed 20 or more hours a week earned about 11 % more than the seniors who did not just a few years later (Kurtzleben, Danielle). When the government prevents a teen from making money to go to college, it actually hurts them, because it also prevents that person from contributing to economic success later on, something that the government wants. Another problem that helping teens get jobs could aid is poverty. The ability for teens to make money will help struggling families, and help the state-wide problem is homelessness. Normal people can donate all they want, but without the government’s help by altering the law, we will never be able to fully solve it.
In New Jersey, there are laws allowing a certain age to work. The lowest age that you can work is at 14.. That sounds fine, but the main problem is that there are restrictions that limit those 14 year olds to practically no pay at all. There is no minimum wage for 14-year olds, and they can only work for 3 hours per day. They even need approval of their school to work (Child Labor Laws and Regulations). So, we may have a policy on teen working age, but it definitely needs altering.
Although there aren’t many arguments about lowering the teen employment age in New Jersey, the people who argue about not changing anything have some crucial points. Some of these points are that teens who work more than 13 to 20 hours a week receive lower grades (Schifferdecker, Stacey). Teens who work find it difficult to keep up extracurricular activities and friendships. Teens who work are more likely to use illegal drugs or alcohol. Overworked teens sleep and exercise less and spend less time with their families. (middleearthnj). Although these are some potential problems, the teen working age should still be addressed because there are so more many advantages, some as important as going to college. Most teens realize at a early age that “money equals power,” and if that statement is true, why shouldn’t teens be allowed to work more (Ferguson).
Although there are no groups or organizations in New Jersey taking sides on this problem, several individuals such as Dawn Rosenberg McKay fight for teens to be granted more working privileges, such as taking down some restrictions (McKay).. There aren’t any advantages or disadvantages to her position, and does not try to influence the government, other than creating an online article.
The federal government has a basic requirement for teen working age/rules but it is up to the state to specifically specify the rules they will have. “The U.S. Department of Labor sets the Federal rules for jobs including minors, those under 18. Basically 14 is the minimum age for employment. If you're under 16 the Government limits the number of hours you can work. Rules vary depending on the kind of work and job you want” (Child Labor Laws and Regulatons). “Laws passed by Congress cannot be ignored by state officials, whether they like the laws or not. But any law deemed to violate the liberties of the people or the sovereignty of the state may be challenged through the courts”(Paper Blog) . Right now the government has their rules set down and are not thinking about a change. To change the rules in New Jersey, the New Jersey government would have to make the new laws and spread them around the state. The government does provide job training programs for children who would like to train for a job in the future (Civil Service Commission, Training Program).
Graphic representation
Since 2005 numbers of teen summer jobs have decreased from 1.7million down to 950 thousand. We need to change this, it is important for teens to have jobs over the summer. For 2013 our goal is to bring teen summer jobs up to 2.0 million. But we cant conquer our goal with the laws we have today in New Jersey. We are trying to make the laws more flexible and let the teens have more working time and not be so strict. Teens are responsible and deserve to be treated more like adults, in order to become an adult.
different Teen jobs
To the left is a pie chart of teen jobs and the percentages in 2012. This chart is showing the low percentages of responsible jobs, which is bad. The jobs on this chart are the most popular jobs teens are participating in. These jobs are not the best jobs for teens. Teens have more responsibility then we think they do. They need to participate in better jobs, not just working at a grocery or department store. We need to give them a chance and give them some variety of jobs they can do. The laws we have now are going against this, but teens need to get a head start on their lives.
Decrease in working teens
Based on the chart to the left from November 2006 through December 2008 the number of teens working decreased significantly. Clearly, the number of teens working is going down and by lifting New Jersey’s current restrictions and making the working age lower we can increase these declining numbers. Teens are not only a vital component of our economy but working allows them to learn important life lessons about responsibility and dealing with real life situations.