<P> In response to these setbacks, Congress, on June 2, 1924, approved an amendment to the United States Constitution that would authorize Congress to regulate "labor of persons under eighteen years of age", and submitted it to the state legislatures for ratification . Only five states ratified the amendment in the 1920s . However, President Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration supported it, and another 14 states signed on in 1933 (his first year in office); 28 states in all had given their approval by 1937 . An additional 8 states were needed at the time to ratify the proposed amendment . </P> <P> The common legal opinion on federal child labor regulation reversed in the 1930s . Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938 regulating the employment of those under 16 or 18 years of age, and the Supreme Court upheld the law . After this shift, the amendment has been described as "moot" and effectively part of the Constitution . </P> <P> However, while the 1938 labor law placed limits on many forms of child labor, agricultural labor was excluded . As a result, approximately 500,000 children pick almost a quarter of the food currently produced in the United States . </P> <P> In 1994 the Arkansas state Federation of Labor placed a child welfare initiative on the ballot prohibiting child labor, which the voters passed . </P>

When did child labor end in the united states