If there is one person who knows how to strike a raw nerve, it’s Newt Gingrich. After making a comment on the work ethic of poor families and their children, the progressives went apoplectic. Here is Newt’s “offensive” comment:
"Really poor children in really poor neighborhoods have no habits of working and nobody around them who works," Gingrich replied. "So they literally have no habit of showing up on Monday. They have no habit of staying all day. They have no habit of 'I do this and you give me cash,' unless it's illegal."
Gingrich went on to suggest that these kids should participate in a jobs program, so as to instill a practical work ethic. Of course, the reactionaries resorted to Dickens-esque demagoguery of children in workhouses slaving away for a spoonful of gruel.
Fannie Flono, a contributing editor at the Charlotte Observer, is typical of the fatuous intellect of the progressives. She begins her commentary:
Now that Newt Gingrich has brought it up, maybe it's time for a refresher course on the value of child labor laws.The Republican presidential candidate's claim that child labor laws are "truly stupid" rightly offends many people. But the bigger problem is that such a notion is intellectually feeble and flatulent. A guy who is notably smart and likes to publicly announce it with nearly every word and gesture should be wary of uttering such nonsense.
Fannie Flono went on to cite a republican and the Census Bureau without sourcing the article or study. So, we are left to trust her with the context and data of these reports. I’m sorry, but I’ve learned not to trust the leftwing media, and particularly the Charlotte Observer without verification. Here are Fannie Flono’s assertions:
In fact, even some Republicans disavowed the generalization and said U.S. Census data easily disprove the idea. Noted Ron Haskins, co-director of the Brookings Center on Children and Families and a former GOP congressional staff member: "Many [poor] mothers work," Haskins says. "If the economy were better, more would work, but they certainly have been setting an example."
According to the census, most poor children live in a household with at least one employed parent, and even among children in extreme poverty, nearly one in three lives with at least one working parent. In 2010 there were 9.9 million single mother households with children under age 18, representing about 85 percent of all single-parent families with children. More than 65 percent of those mothers were employed.
It would have been nice to verify these “stats”. But unfortunately, I don’t have all night to run down rabbit holes. But what can be verified is the statistics of child labor before the Fair Standards Act of 1938. The participation of males aged 10 -15 in non-agricultural work in 1930 was 6.5%; for females it was 2.9%. The employment of children in industrial American was on the decline due to technological advances and compulsory educational requirements imposed by state governments.
The progressives/liberals would have us believe that employers of that period were the ones who exploited children, when in fact it was usually their families.
The continuation of child labor in industry in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, however, sparked controversy. Much of this ire was directed at employers, especially in industries where supervisors bullied children to work harder and assigned them to dangerous, exhausting or degrading jobs. In addition, working-class parents were accused of greedily not caring about the long-term well-being of their children. Requiring them to go to work denied them educational opportunities and reduced their life-time earnings, yet parents of laboring children generally required them to turn over all or almost all of their earnings. For example, one government study of unmarried young women living at home and working in factories and stores in New York City in 1907 found over ninety percent of those under age 20 turned all of their earnings over to their parents.
Fannie Flono then equates a good work ethic with education:
The work ethic Gingrich and others should focus on is in the classroom. Working hard on class work to boost academic performance is what will lift poor children out of poverty so they can become productive tax-paying citizens. Unraveling child labor laws can only lead to the kind of child victimization this country rightly ditched a century ago.
I agree with Ms. Flono on the premise that education is a good way to combat poverty, but it doesn’t instill a decent work ethic. All you have to do is read the complaints of employers and their dealings with today’s so-called “millennial generation”. These “kids” have an inflated sense of self. They have no regard for their employers or fellow employees. As a matter of fact, the OWS crowd personifies the attitude of these spoiled rotten brats; and that is something a college education can not correct.
Source: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/12/09/2837104/unraveling-child-labor-laws-bad.html#ixzz1gBg8TVrY
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/dec/01/nation/la-na-1202-gingrich-child-labor-20111202
http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/whaples.childlabor
"Really poor children in really poor neighborhoods have no habits of working and nobody around them who works," Gingrich replied. "So they literally have no habit of showing up on Monday. They have no habit of staying all day. They have no habit of 'I do this and you give me cash,' unless it's illegal."
Gingrich went on to suggest that these kids should participate in a jobs program, so as to instill a practical work ethic. Of course, the reactionaries resorted to Dickens-esque demagoguery of children in workhouses slaving away for a spoonful of gruel.
Fannie Flono, a contributing editor at the Charlotte Observer, is typical of the fatuous intellect of the progressives. She begins her commentary:
Now that Newt Gingrich has brought it up, maybe it's time for a refresher course on the value of child labor laws.The Republican presidential candidate's claim that child labor laws are "truly stupid" rightly offends many people. But the bigger problem is that such a notion is intellectually feeble and flatulent. A guy who is notably smart and likes to publicly announce it with nearly every word and gesture should be wary of uttering such nonsense.
Fannie Flono went on to cite a republican and the Census Bureau without sourcing the article or study. So, we are left to trust her with the context and data of these reports. I’m sorry, but I’ve learned not to trust the leftwing media, and particularly the Charlotte Observer without verification. Here are Fannie Flono’s assertions:
In fact, even some Republicans disavowed the generalization and said U.S. Census data easily disprove the idea. Noted Ron Haskins, co-director of the Brookings Center on Children and Families and a former GOP congressional staff member: "Many [poor] mothers work," Haskins says. "If the economy were better, more would work, but they certainly have been setting an example."
According to the census, most poor children live in a household with at least one employed parent, and even among children in extreme poverty, nearly one in three lives with at least one working parent. In 2010 there were 9.9 million single mother households with children under age 18, representing about 85 percent of all single-parent families with children. More than 65 percent of those mothers were employed.
It would have been nice to verify these “stats”. But unfortunately, I don’t have all night to run down rabbit holes. But what can be verified is the statistics of child labor before the Fair Standards Act of 1938. The participation of males aged 10 -15 in non-agricultural work in 1930 was 6.5%; for females it was 2.9%. The employment of children in industrial American was on the decline due to technological advances and compulsory educational requirements imposed by state governments.
The progressives/liberals would have us believe that employers of that period were the ones who exploited children, when in fact it was usually their families.
The continuation of child labor in industry in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, however, sparked controversy. Much of this ire was directed at employers, especially in industries where supervisors bullied children to work harder and assigned them to dangerous, exhausting or degrading jobs. In addition, working-class parents were accused of greedily not caring about the long-term well-being of their children. Requiring them to go to work denied them educational opportunities and reduced their life-time earnings, yet parents of laboring children generally required them to turn over all or almost all of their earnings. For example, one government study of unmarried young women living at home and working in factories and stores in New York City in 1907 found over ninety percent of those under age 20 turned all of their earnings over to their parents.
Fannie Flono then equates a good work ethic with education:
The work ethic Gingrich and others should focus on is in the classroom. Working hard on class work to boost academic performance is what will lift poor children out of poverty so they can become productive tax-paying citizens. Unraveling child labor laws can only lead to the kind of child victimization this country rightly ditched a century ago.
I agree with Ms. Flono on the premise that education is a good way to combat poverty, but it doesn’t instill a decent work ethic. All you have to do is read the complaints of employers and their dealings with today’s so-called “millennial generation”. These “kids” have an inflated sense of self. They have no regard for their employers or fellow employees. As a matter of fact, the OWS crowd personifies the attitude of these spoiled rotten brats; and that is something a college education can not correct.
Source: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/12/09/2837104/unraveling-child-labor-laws-bad.html#ixzz1gBg8TVrY
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/dec/01/nation/la-na-1202-gingrich-child-labor-20111202
http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/whaples.childlabor
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