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You are literally replying to a thread about how that worked in practice.
Yes, it worked in a time when America was a less productive country doing lower quality work that was so less advanced an uneducated 13-year-old could pull it off.
You know what the most annoying part of this is? The smug dismissal that construction sites in America don't need sweeping because "we don't do that kind of work any more"
Yes we do, it's just that it's done by the most recent illegal Guatemalan villager who doesn't even speak enough Spanish to take regular orders.
The "lower quality work" is always with us, it's just that you guys have managed to import an underclass of slaves to do it for you out of sight.
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Hey, i had a job at 13. It sucked, but it was still a real job. I dont know why you think its impossible for 13 year olds to be useful (but somehow also smart enough to do college prep classes)
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No, it was not. It was a few decades ago doing work that hasn't substantially changed. If it was naturally declining they wouldn't have put so much work into making it illegal
Sure, as you said above, if you wanted something closer to German-style tracking when it comes to education, I could see the arguments for that. But, that's not saying, "hey, you're 14, go find a job because we're not going to even attempt to educate you anymore" like some here seem to prefer.
But, I think frankly, even in that world, the vast majority of workplaces aren't going to train a bunch of 15-year-olds to do work they can probably find somebody older to do at the same wages, without the extra worry, plus again, even by the standards of 30 years ago, a lot of those jobs aren't economically efficient to do in the US, and again, that's a good thing we're productive enough doing other things we don't need our 14 year olds working and instead, have the economic output that we can educate even the least-wealthy on the off-chance a few of them out of a hundred become something more than a lifetime factory worker like they would in your reality.
Also, a not-so-secret part of why even in a world where having college degrees being mandatory for jobs were illegal, a lot of workplaces would still prefer college-educated people because it shows them you can follow directions and finish something, even if the directions and tasks were possibly not related to the job.
And an even-less-secret part of that is that "a lot" is not nearly enough for degreeless people to worry about finding a job, which we see in today's world, in industries where degree requirements are optional, not illegal. At least I never worried about finding a job so far.
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