The issue is stronger than just being responsible enough. I know there are 12-year-olds responsible enough to work some part-time jobs, one of them is my cousin; but that's not the main issue. Mature means "acting your age". Trying to act older than your age is by definition immature. There's a lot of activities that young teens can do outside of the workplace to get responsibility and maturity under people who know it's their responsibility to help the kids and teens grow up and learn things like teamwork, authority, and responsibility; all the things that kids think a job is going to teach them anyway.There are a lot of problems with teens in this society already; exposing them to the workplace is going to make it worse. The world is a corrupt place. Part of maturity is understanding just how corrupt it really is and being able to control it. Thrusting children into that arena isn't going to help. Parents who responsibly teach their children about sex do it less, the same for drugs, smoking, and dating. Children taught by their peers or teachers have a higher risk of being thrown in jail later in life or worse, and have higher chances of divorce and an unhappy life.Just imagine men and women, including those jerks and perverts we know, with teacher-like authority who have control of the kids' PAYCHECK. We're not talking about simple grades on paper they typically don't care for until much later anyway. Now we are putting their ambitions, wants, and desires on the line, and the boss knows it. They're not group counselors, they're not teachers, and they're not scout leaders. They are men and women who are out to make a profit out of a business, and supervise and control the workers who make it happen.I could walk around the mall today with this 1-question poll, and I'm pretty sure that 90% or more bosses will tell me that it's out of the question.But in this economy, 90% of people are employed right now. It hasn't been this low in a long time, and yet the economy is suffering. Tossing hundreds of thousands of money-wanting tweens in the mix isn't going to help it. Young teens wouldn't be working because they have to support a family, pay taxes, pay bills, or food on the table. They do it because they want to buy things for their hobbies and games.As for taxes just FYI, if you are under the age of 18, by law you don't pay taxes, and generally speaking, if you live with your parents, they pay taxes for you by including them, even if you're 22-years-old. As long as teens mark 0 for exemptions, they will make money off the government. The government gives tax returns to people whom they deem didn't earn enough. There is a bare minimum that teens can't reach to be taxed at all. Believe it or not, almost all part-time workers (the majority of whom are teens or college students living at home; almost none of them are poor families) and many odd-job workers are receiving money from the government.With that in mind, it would hurt everybody.