Key information lacking for half of US youngster labor deaths, official report finds | Baby labor
Information is lacking on over half of deaths at work of individuals underneath the age of 18 within the US due to important gaps in youngster labor information, in response to a authorities accountability workplace (GAO) report launched on Tuesday.
The report discovered that between 2013 and 2023, a median of 24 youngsters underneath the age of 18 died annually as a result of work-related incidents. Over half of the 260 youngster fatality instances didn’t include detailed information on the reason for dying or the business the kid labored in.
Among the 109 fatalities with a reported business, 75% labored in agriculture. Among the 111 fatalities with a reported explanation for dying, two-thirds of fatalities had been attributable to transportation incidents.
The report cited an absence of coordination between companies as a supply of data-collection points. Since January 2025, the US Department of Labor’s collaboration with different federal companies to deal with youngster labor legislation violations has “largely diminished”, the GAO discovered.
Data gaps cited within the report embrace lacking data relating to business labored and explanation for dying on the company’s office fatality information. Data assortment on working youngsters’s accidents and diseases modified in 2021, so information can’t be in contrast with earlier years. A labor division survey and two different federal datasets that included youngster labor harm information have additionally ended.
The report discovered that between fiscal years 2015 and 2025, 59% of kid labor legislation violations concerned employers scheduling 14- or 15-year-old youngsters to work longer or later than permitted by federal youngster labor legal guidelines. Sixty-two per cent of kid labor violations throughout this era occurred within the lodging and meals providers business.
It additionally discovered that the labor division’s wage and hour division “has not absolutely addressed” challenges the company faces in imposing youngster labor legal guidelines and that since January 2025: “DOL’s collaboration with federal companies on actions to stop and detect youngster labor violations has largely diminished.”
The report was issued in response to a July 2023 request led by the House training and workforce committee rating member, Bobby Scott of Virginia, for the Government Accountability Office to evaluate the scope of the problem of kid labor within the US, the capability of presidency companies to observe, analysis, and implement youngster labor legal guidelines, and the effectiveness of present efforts to deal with unlawful youngster labor.
“The GAO report exhibits that the Trump administration’s upheaval of federal companies has harmed youngsters,” mentioned Scott.
“As a results of the administration’s chaos, the federal authorities’s response to youngster labor lacks coordination, and its enforcement of kid labor legal guidelines is much less efficient. Additionally, the price of slashing budgets at vital analysis companies such because the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has led to actual harms. The federal authorities can not successfully stop youngster labor if it doesn’t have the data it must know the place youngsters are working, if they’re being injured, and the place the best dangers exist,” mentioned Scott.
Scott has launched a invoice, the Protecting Children Act, which might enhance information assortment and utilization to tell youngster labor enforcement.
The report comes as youngster labor violations within the US have surged over the previous decade, 19 states have moved to calm down youngster labor legal guidelines since 2021. The variety of minors employed in violation of kid labor legal guidelines within the US elevated from 1,012 youngsters in fiscal 12 months 2015 to five,272 in fiscal 12 months 2025.
