When I grow up… I don't want to be broke: The problems with child actor trust fund requirements

Abstract

Child actors have consistently been treated as typical minority laborers, with all of their earnings legally belonging to their parents. After many child actors were left with scraps at the end of their minority, Coogan's law was enacted in California to require parents of child actors to withhold some of their earnings in a trust. However, almost a century after Coogan's law was passed, there are still many child actors left with nothing. This Note proposes to both enact further union regulations to protect child actors in every state, and also to raise the required amount withheld from fifteen percent (15%) to fifty percent (50%).