Teen jobs in Mississippi: why federal rules do most of the work

The U.S. Department of Labor keeps a table of state child labor standards. For Mississippi, the limits it lists for workers under 16 apply in a factory, mill, cannery, workshop, or manufacturing establishment: no more than 8 hours a day and 44 hours a week, and no work between 7 p.m. and 6 a.m. The table lists no separate Mississippi hour limits for 16- and 17-year-olds.

So a 14-year-old in a Jackson office or a 15-year-old at a Tupelo snowball stand is not covered by those state numbers. That does not leave them unprotected. It means the federal rules are the ones to read.

The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the main federal law on wages and child labor, limits 14- and 15-year-olds to work outside school hours only: no more than 3 hours on a school day, Fridays included, and 18 hours in a school week. On a non-school day the limit is 8 hours, and in a non-school week it is 40. Work must fall between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m., except from June 1 through Labor Day, when the evening limit moves to 9 p.m.

At 16, the federal hour limits end. A 16- or 17-year-old may work unlimited hours in any job the Secretary of Labor has not declared hazardous. When both a state rule and a federal rule apply, the stricter one wins.

The federal government has not always had this power. In Hammer v. Dagenhart (1918), the Supreme Court said Congress could not keep goods made by child workers out of interstate trade. In United States v. Darby (1941), the Court upheld the FLSA and overruled Hammer, so the federal limits in this section stand on that decision.

Mississippi has no state minimum wage law. The Department of Labor says employers covered by the FLSA must pay the federal minimum of $7.25 an hour. That number is the floor for most teen jobs in the state, from Hattiesburg to the Coast.

Keep your own record of the days and hours you work. A notebook or a phone note is enough, and it matters if a paycheck ever looks short.