The CARE Act of 2025 amends the Fair Labor Standards Act to strengthen protections for children working in agriculture. It revises the statutory definition of "oppressive child labor," alters the statutory exemptions for farm work by clarifying which parental and family‑farm activities remain exempt, removes a waiver that previously applied to certain hand‑harvest labor, and explicitly bars persons under 18 from performing pesticide‑handler tasks defined in the federal worker‑protection rules.
The bill also creates new reporting and data obligations—requiring employers to report work‑related serious injury, illness, or death of agricultural employees under 18 within five days and directing the Department of Labor to compile and publish an annual analysis using federal and state sources. Enforcement is beefed up: civil penalties rise to specified per‑employee ranges for child‑labor violations, the Secretary may double fines for repeated or willful violations that cause serious harm, and the bill creates a criminal penalty (up to five years) for repeated or willful violations that result in serious injury or death.
At a Glance
What It Does
The bill amends FLSA definitions and the agricultural child‑labor exemption, mandates employer incident reporting within five days for serious injuries, illnesses, and deaths of under‑18 agricultural workers, requires the Department of Labor to publish annual data-driven reports, bans under‑18s from pesticide‑handler tasks, and raises civil and adds criminal penalties for violations.
Who It Affects
Commercial farms, agricultural labor contractors, crew leaders, and farm employers who hire minors; parents and family farms that rely on minor family labor; federal and state labor and safety agencies that will collect data and enforce new penalties.
Why It Matters
The bill tightens long‑standing statutory exceptions that have allowed younger and longer agricultural work for children, shifts accountability explicitly onto employers, and creates a data and enforcement framework designed to surface and deter hazardous child work in agriculture.
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What This Bill Actually Does
CARE Act 2025 changes the Fair Labor Standards Act's approach to children working in agriculture by clarifying what counts as "oppressive child labor" and limiting longstanding carve‑outs. It preserves an exemption allowing minors to work on a parent‑owned farm outside school hours, but narrows other parental exemptions and removes a statutory waiver that had applied to certain hand‑harvest labor.
Those changes tighten the statutory baseline that governs how and when minors may lawfully work on farms.
The bill creates immediate compliance duties for employers. If an agricultural employee under 18 suffers a serious work‑related injury or illness, or dies, the employer must file a detailed report with the Department of Labor within five days.
Reports must include identifying information, task and hazard details (including chemical or machinery exposure), and any other items the Secretary prescribes by regulation. Employers who fail to file face civil penalties in a defined range.
At the same time the Department of Labor must pull together existing federal and state sources — including Wage and Hour, BLS, OSHA, state employment agencies, and NIOSH — and publish an annual analysis and evaluation that flags potential violations and trends.To increase deterrence, the bill replaces generic references to "persons" with "employers" in the penalty provisions and sets explicit dollar ranges: per‑employee penalties for child‑labor violations, higher amounts for violations that cause serious injury, illness, or death (with an option to double for repeated or willful breaches), and a new criminal exposure of up to five years' imprisonment for repeated or willful violations that result in serious injury, illness, or death of a minor. It also instructs the Secretary to revise relevant regulations to prohibit anyone under 18 from performing duties defined as pesticide‑handler tasks under existing federal standards.
Rulemaking windows are short: the Secretary may issue implementation rules within six months, and some regulatory acts (the pesticide handler ban) must be carried out within 30 days of enactment.
The Five Things You Need to Know
Employers must submit a report to the Department of Labor within five days after a work‑related serious injury, serious illness, or death of any agricultural employee under 18, including name, age, employer address, task details, and hazard exposures.
Civil penalties for child‑labor violations are set between $500 and $15,000 per affected employee, and between $15,000 and $60,115 for violations that cause serious injury, serious illness, or death, with the possibility of doubling for repeated or willful violations.
Failure to file the employer report can trigger a separate civil penalty of $500 to $7,000 per violation.
The bill requires the Secretary of Labor to bar anyone under 18 from performing the tasks or duties listed for "handlers" under the pesticide worker‑protection standard, and directs that regulatory change within 30 days of enactment.
Repeated or willful violations of the child‑labor provisions that cause serious injury, serious illness, or death to an employee under 18 expose the responsible person to criminal punishment of up to five years' imprisonment.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
Every bill we cover gets an analysis of its key sections.
Rewrites the definition of 'oppressive child labor'
The bill replaces the prior statutory text with a three‑part definition that identifies (1) employment of 16‑ or 17‑year‑olds in occupations the Secretary declares particularly hazardous, (2) employment of 14‑ or 15‑year‑olds that interferes with schooling or health unless the Secretary finds otherwise, and (3) any employment of children under 14. This recentering makes statutory boundaries clearer for regulators and courts when they determine whether a job qualifies as unlawful child labor.
Narrows nonhazardous exemptions and removes the hand‑harvest waiver
This section retains a family‑farm exemption that allows minors under 18 to work on a parent‑owned farm outside of local school hours, but explicitly limits other parental exemptions to younger children and excludes manufacturing, mining, and occupations the Secretary finds hazardous. The bill also repeals a standalone waiver provision that previously applied to certain hand‑harvest labor, tightening the statutory permission that some growers relied on to employ younger workers.
Restructures civil penalties and targets employers
The amendment replaces the generic term "person" with "employer" and sets fixed penalty ranges tied to each employee harmed by a violation, differentiating ordinary violations from those that cause serious harm or death. It also defines "serious illness" for enforcement purposes and authorizes doubling penalties for willful or repeated serious harms — a practical lever for regulators to prioritize investigations with high human costs.
Adds criminal penalties for repeated or willful deadly or injurious violations
A new subsection makes repeated or willful violations of FLSA child‑labor provisions that result in death, serious injury, or serious illness of a minor a felony punishable by up to five years in prison, or a fine under Title 18, or both. The provision creates prosecutable exposure beyond civil enforcement, but it will require evidence of willfulness or repetition tied to the harmful outcome.
Requires the Department of Labor to compile and publish annual child‑injury data
The Secretary must analyze injuries, illnesses, and deaths of agricultural workers under 18 using Wage and Hour, BLS, OSHA, state agencies, and NIOSH data and submit an annual report to Congress. The reports must include summaries, evaluations of the status of child labor and hazards, and any information that suggests statutory violations, and must be published in the Federal Register and posted online to increase transparency and inform enforcement priorities.
Creates a five‑day employer reporting duty and penalties for failure to report
Employers must file a prompt report within five days after specified events involving under‑18 agricultural employees: serious injury, discovery of a serious illness, or death. The statutory minimum content list makes reports an operational tool for enforcement — the Secretary can supplement it by regulation. The bill authorizes per‑violation penalties for failures to report, and sets an effective date tied either to the Secretary's rulemaking or six months after enactment, whichever comes first.
Bans under‑18 pesticide‑handler tasks under existing worker‑protection definitions
Congress directs the Secretary of Labor to revise part 570 of title 29 CFR to prohibit anyone under 18 from performing duties listed in the definition of "handler" in the pesticide worker‑protection standard (40 CFR 170.3). This ties the child‑labor prohibition to an existing technical regulatory definition, which will require coordination between DOL and EPA frameworks.
Rulemaking, effective dates, and nonpreemption of stronger state laws
The Secretary has six months to issue implementing rules, which take effect within 30 days of publication; the statutory penalties and regulatory prohibitions apply to violations occurring after those rules take effect. The section also states that nothing in the amendments preempts state laws that afford greater protection, preserving state authority to provide stricter child‑labor safeguards.
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Explore Employment in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Children working in agriculture — The bill narrows what work is permissible, bans under‑18 pesticide‑handler duties, and creates reporting and data collection aimed at reducing hazardous exposures and serious injuries.
- Advocates and researchers focused on occupational health — Annual, standardized DOL reports using federal and state sources will improve visibility into injury patterns and enforcement gaps.
- School districts and education advocates — By drawing clearer lines around work that interferes with schooling and elevating reporting, the law is designed to reduce excessive hours that contribute to dropout.
Who Bears the Cost
- Commercial farms and agricultural employers — New reporting duties, possible higher civil fines, risk of criminal liability for repeated/willful violations, and the operational burden of documenting incident details and safety controls.
- Labor contractors and crew leaders — The shift to naming "employer" increases direct accountability for hiring practices and supervision, exposing contractors to civil and potential criminal consequences.
- State and federal labor agencies — DOL, OSHA, and state enforcement bodies will need staff, systems, and interagency processes to collect reports, analyze data, and pursue escalated penalties and prosecutions.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The bill pits two legitimate objectives against each other: protecting children from hazardous agricultural work and the economic, cultural, and operational realities of farming—especially family farms and small employers. Strengthening enforcement and raising penalties improves safety incentives, but without funding and clear implementation protocols it risks pushing work underground or imposing heavy burdens on small operators who lack the systems to comply.
The bill tightens statutory language and creates new reporting and enforcement mechanisms, but it does not supply appropriations or explicit funding for the Department of Labor or state agencies to implement those responsibilities. That gap raises questions about whether DOL will have the investigative capacity to process potentially large volumes of five‑day reports, to validate employer submissions, and to follow through on doubled penalties or criminal referrals.
The employer reporting requirement increases transparency but also brings privacy, data quality, and compliance challenges. Mandated inclusion of names, ages, and incident detail creates records that state and local systems must protect; inconsistent reporting formats and underreporting by employers fearful of penalties could undermine the value of the dataset.
Further, tying the pesticide‑handler prohibition to an existing CFR definition makes enforcement straightforward in principle, but may require coordination with EPA and retraining of inspectors to resolve technical boundary questions about which tasks qualify as "handler" duties.
Finally, criminal penalties create a strong deterrent but also practical prosecutorial hurdles: proving willfulness or repeated misconduct tied to a specific serious injury or death is fact‑intensive and resource‑heavy. Smaller, family‑owned farms may face disproportionate compliance costs or inadvertent exposure, while commercial growers may need to redesign supervisory, training, and recordkeeping practices to avoid steep fines and criminal risk.
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