> but in the long run the ex-farm workers will move to urban areas where they'll get jobs, rent houses, buy clothing for their kids... Let's take Washington st

> but in the long run the ex-farm workers will move to urban areas where they'll get jobs, rent houses, buy clothing for their kids... Let's take Washington state as an example. Where are the workers going to move? Seattle? Where rent is ridiculously high? What jobs will they get when more and more jobs these days require college degrees and manufacturing is going away? The job and housing market today is distinctly different from 100 years ago—we place higher emphasis on schooling and training and many jobs that do not require some form of schooling don't pay enough to support a family (mostly because they're not designed to). Please don't construe my comment as endorsing some sort of populist revolution. I just find it very hard to believe hordes of migrant workers (many of which are here illegally, don't speak much English, perhaps have little schooling, etc.) will just waltz on into cities and out of thin air procure jobs that pay enough to cover rent, food, and clothing—especially when they only reason they can support a family on an apple picker's salary of a couple hundred bucks a day is because they live in the cheapest part of the state. I mean, if it was that easy why wouldn't they do it already? Cities offer vastly more resources for poor folk than central Washington orchards do, so all they gain from picking apples is familiarity and perhaps the support network of working with similar people.