You need experience to get hired, but unless you get hired, you can’t get experience.
Many young people across the country face this dilemma. A lower minimum wage for teens would encourage businesses to hire them. That would give teens more opportunities to gain work experience and learn valuable life and career skills, such as the importance of showing up to work on time and how to be professional
and reliable.
Federal law limits what teens can do while on the job. At grocery stores, for example, teens under 18 can bag goods, but they aren’t allowed to operate a cardboard-box compactor. When young people can’t do parts of the job, employers have to hire someone else to do those tasks. If there are going to be legal restrictions on what teens are allowed to do, then it makes sense that their pay is lower as well.