Reread your comment from the perspective of a family struggling to make ends meet
I think we are on the wrong page.
By charging I mean the wage. Charging more for a kid. I can see how my choice of words was confusing.
Let me reword it:
Requiring that children under 18 get an additional wage of $5/hr per year they are under 18 (17 = +5, 16 = +10, etc) is a way to discourage companies from hiring underage workers by making them cost more.
I know, but my point is that with it now being legal, poor families will now sell their kids out as young as they possibly can out of desperation to anyone who will pay to earn wages even the adults can’t get, and now you’ve just made child slavery a thing, and growing necessity, as real wages continue to decline
