You keep using the word class, but I don't think it's applicable here. If everyone in the country is subjected to a lower minimum wage while a teenager, there is no disadvantaged "class".

Not sure why this getting down-voted. There are issues, like to what extent having teenagers work is useful or harmful to society in the first place, but a universal things everyone enters and leaves isn't a class in the segregated and hereditary sense.

Religion is a legally protected class; everyone is free to change their religion. Pregnancy is also a legally protected class, despite being one that half the population can enter and leave. Also, short term disabilities.

I don't find this argument compelling, unless you're also arguing that employers should be able to pay people less for their religion or because they get pregnant (or choose not to get pregnant) or because they contracted a disease or injury.

That's a different use of class, but an important one too. We want people's choices around families and religion to be free from outside coercion, so we have special protections. Short term disabilities are not a choice but also non-universal, and without the protection they might worsen into long-term ones.

But being a teenager is a not a choice, and not something that happens to some people but not others. Again, there's many reasons we don't want to promote shit jobs for adolescents because of some nonsense about character building, but I think that's a rational distinct from the others.

Seems like you're reaaaally splitting hairs here. Young age is okay to discriminate against, but not old age (because you don't leave old age without dying). Anything people can enter and leave by choice is not okay to discriminate against if it's -important-, like family or religion.

What about menstruation? That's pretty universal to women (not entirely especially with non-cisgendered), not really a choice (at least, not without encroaching on the same protections you'd want with pregnancy), and all those who do menstruate enter and leave it (both monthly, and at menopause)...what's your objection to discriminating against menstruating women?

The disadvantaged class is poor people. Poor kids will have to work and will make less money while doing it than they should. So not only do these kids have to waste valuable time at low-wage jobs (rather than studying, being kids), but they get even less money while doing it. Wealthy people's kids won't work.

So it's okay for businesses to discriminate against old people?

Hang on, hang on.

By definition, age is not a class, because by definition, /everyone moves out of that class/. Your entire proposition is faulty from the foundation!

Not by choice though. If we can get younger or older by choice on a whim, I think your point would stand.

It doesn't matter! You could change class by a windfall inheritance or a sudden bankruptcy. Class does not bear choice as a prerequisite.

This sounds exactly like what OP indicated.

A fast food job isn't an apprenticeship. It's just a shitty job. Management of a fast food restaurant takes a bit of generalizable, transferable skill, but there are always going to be an order of magnitude more workers than managers. A job where only 10% of the workers can move up is a dead end job for 90% of them. Every apprentice carpenter can become a carpenter.

I disagree. While learning to operate a grill or deep fryer isn't a skill many are likely to need in the future there are dozens of generalist skills learned from your first job. Think teamwork, following managerial directions, following a roster, how to complete timesheets, how to deal with workplace conflict, how to deal with suppliers and customers, how to dress appropriatly, even how to count money/operate a register. Fast food jobs are a great place to make mistakes as a teen as the consequences are minimal and you can get another job easily. If you've never worked in any workplace you'll find it far harder to get hired.

Agreed, I think that a number of these jobs provide a fantastic introduction to business process but the resume doesn’t necessarily translate into the opportunities that it could or should depending on a persons aptitude. As such, it becomes necessary to reconfigure resumes in a way that avoids jobs that might seem unwanted and highlights skills that appear more sought after regardless of how much they were tied to a job. I like the phrase resume driven development.

A better path would be for employers to have internal training programs for gaining skills that can help one to climb the career ladder either internally or externally knowing that if a good person leaves that the reputation will attract suitable replacements.

If you have kept a fast food job for six months you have shown that you will actually show up on time regularly, not steal (much) and do an at least adequate job. More generally most jobs don’t lead to a qualification but do teach skills. The more responsible the job you’ve had in the past the more likely you are to do a good job with a new one. McDonald’s does teach skills. If you want to go from a teenage hire to an assistant manager in under six months that’s doable, and managing a McDonald’s really does take skill and pay well. There are very few dead end jobs but there are plenty where most people hired there have no intention of getting promoted.

Not everyone working there can be promoted, because there aren’t enough of the good jobs to go around. Saying it boils down to personal responsibility ignores the fact that in many ways it is a game of musical chairs and there aren’t enough good jobs.

Granted, jobs can be created and the more skilled the labor force the better the jobs, so the number of chairs in the game can be increased, but on the other hand those aren’t the kind of skills you’re going to pick up serving burgers at mcdonalds.

Shitty jobs teaches you one thing or two too. Who's to decide there's nothing to learn from a job, for 100% of people?

I worked as a mailman between 11-13 y.o. It was a shitty job carrying ads and local newspapers weighting as much as you on a bike through hills in -10C snowy north. A shitty job, but I learned a thing or to; planning, discipline and value of money.

Problem is when you're stuck at a shitty job with no option to change/improve at all. I don't see how that's the case for teenagers at entry level job.