Walmart child labor violations in Pennsylvania will cost the retailer nearly $8 million, in what state officials call one of the largest child labor enforcement actions in US history. The state opened its investigation after receiving complaints that minors had been injured while working at Walmart stores.
Walmart child labor investigation uncovers a pattern
Pennsylvania’s Department of Labor and Industry began investigating Walmart in February 2025.
“Investigators conducted 10 audits at eight Walmarts throughout Pennsylvania and said they found an average of 65 Child Labor Act violations per audit, including letting minors work more hours than allowed under state law and failing to get required work permits for minor employees.”
The department then extended its enforcement to every Walmart in Pennsylvania. Under the settlement, the company will pay $7.68 million in administrative penalties on top of $142,785 in earlier fines. Labor and Industry Secretary Nancy Walker said:
“When our investigators identified a pattern of violations at Walmart stores, we knew we needed to look beyond those individual locations. This settlement is the result of our team’s work to hold Walmart accountable across the Commonwealth, and the future commitments we’ve secured will help prevent these violations from happening again.”
Walmart has also agreed to train its managers on child labor laws and to post information about workers’ rights in its stores. A company spokesperson said Walmart already has processes in place to support compliance.
Pennsylvania pushes back on “the cost of doing business”
The Walmart child labor case is not the first time Pennsylvania has caught a major employer breaking the law. Authorities previously found more than 100 children working excessive hours at McDonald’s franchises in the state.
Cases like these pushed lawmakers to act. Representative Regina Young introduced a bill to double fines for child labor violations, warning that too many employers treat them as “the cost of doing business.” She pointed out that the state’s fines had not changed in over a decade, even as violations grew. The House passed the bill in March 2025, but it has not yet come to a vote in the Senate. An earlier version passed the House in 2023 and also stalled there.
Child labor protections erode across the US
Unfortunately, several other US states are becoming more lenient on employers who use child labor. Child labor violations in the US rose fivefold in a decade, and hazardous work violations more than doubled. Yet since 2021, lawmakers in 30 states have introduced bills to weaken child labor laws, and 17 states have passed them.
This year, Indiana scrapped its systems for tracking youth employment and removed mandatory rest breaks, while West Virginia eliminated its list of hazardous occupations for minors. Policy experts warn that these state rollbacks pave the way for weaker federal standards, as federal workplace inspections fall even while violations rise.
Weak oversight has already cost children their lives on the job. When lawmakers remove work permits, hour limits and inspections, they leave young workers cheaper to hire, easier to exploit and harder to protect, creating the conditions in which forced labor and other forms of modern slavery take hold.
Add your name to demand an end to the rollback of child labor protections across the US.
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