The Florida state legislature is considering a bill to lift restrictions on teenagers’ ability to work.
SB 918, introduced by Republican state sen. Jay Collins, would allow 16 and 17-year-olds to work without penalty. Fourteen and 15-year-olds would be permitted to work if they were homeschooled or graduated from high school. The legislation would additionally allow teenagers 14 years and older to work earlier than 6:30 a.m. or later than 11 p.m., enabling them to work overnight shifts.
Collins’s bill advanced in the state legislature on Tuesday, clearing the Senate Commerce and Tourism Committee in a 5-4 vote, despite unease voiced by critics, including some of his Republican colleagues.
“This bill not only allows employers to schedule all 16- and 17-year-olds for unlimited hours, overnight, and without breaks — but also targets kids as young as 14. For most, that means they’re in their first year of high school,” Alexis Tsoukalas, senior analyst at Florida Policy Institute, said. “We don’t let kids this young get a driver’s license and we’re worried about their social media consumption, so why are we OK treating them like they’re adults just because they’re home or virtual-schooled?”
Collins dismissed those concerns, touting the legislation as “a parental rights issue.”
“Frankly, we’re not talking The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair. We’re talking about them working at Publix and Piggly Wiggly,” he told lawmakers. “What I do believe we should do is stand up for parental rights and know that parents, which is the group that really can’t take care of their kids in this instance, doesn’t have the say of when they should work, how they should work. We should let them say what’s best with our kids at 16 to 17 years old.”
Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) has pitched teenage workers to help solve labor shortages. In 2023, Florida implemented policies keeping illegal immigrants from gaining access to the workforce. Allowing more teenagers to fill jobs left vacant could narrow the gap left by lost workers, the governor argues.
The state is now considering three new bills to strengthen E-verify requirements, according to a National Review analysis, which would further target illegal immigrants in the workforce.
“Why do we say we need to import foreigners, even import them illegally, when you know, teenagers used to work at these resorts, college students should be able to do this stuff,” DeSantis said during a roundtable last week with the Trump administration’s border czar, Tom Homan.
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“Yes, we had people that left because of those rules, but you’ve also been able to hire other people,” he added, referring to the 2023 law requiring employers to use the E-verify program to check the immigration status of new hires. “And what’s wrong with expecting our young people to be working part-time now? I mean, that’s how it used to be when I was growing up.”
Florida wouldn’t be the first state to ease child labor regulations to fill workforce shortages. Arkansas and Iowa are among a slew of states that have sought to roll back restrictions on teenage workers, citing workforce shortages.
