When I was a kid, "Kids" picked fruits and veggies.
TT
When I was a kid, they worked at McDonalds, mowed lawns, painted houses and bagged groceries. Still do in rural areas.
Retirees and housewives did too.
Exactly, I started at age 14 picking strawberries, beside mexican and vietnamese workers. I spent all of high school and college working on that nursery just south of Indianapolis. It was a great experience, then we were 12 miles from downtown Indy, living in a suburb and working on a farm, I got the advantage of all 3 lifestyles.
Now I'll admit I only picked one season then moved up to hourly worker and eventually through college as the assistant manager. I actually hired those migrant workers and dealt with them 16 hours a day for 6 weeks a year.
I checked papers and so did the owner and we dealt with INS showing up and once removing 2 workers for false papers. In the 8 years I worked there TWO got by us ( that I know of), we had 2 to 4 INS visits a year.
We also an advantage in that our migrant workers also worked for the apple orchards locally, in fact we as a group tried to keep the same people employed as long as we could and to bring them back year after year.
My point being that this system can be worked and worked legally, and that there are kids who can work these hours and jobs.