This law banned child labor and set the minimum hourly wage and maximum numbers of hours in a workweek. The act prohibits “oppressive child labor” in the United States, which is defined, with exceptions, as the employment of youth under the age of 16 in any occupation or the employment of youth under 18 years old in hazardous occupations.
Congress finally obtained Federal protection for children with this Act in 1938 after decades of trying. The 1916 Keating-Owen Act had been passed by Congress and signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson, but the Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional because it overstepped the purpose of the Government’s powers to regulate interstate commerce. Congress passed another child labor bill in 1918; the Supreme Court found it unconstitutional as well. In 1924, Congress tried to regulate child labor through a constitutional amendment. A joint resolution was submitted to the states for ratification, but it fell short of the required three-fourths threshold needed to add it to the Constitution.
The Fair Labor Standards Act was also challenged in the Supreme Court, but it was upheld.
