4 ms·

If welfare and food stamps are better than performing farm labor then farm wages and working conditions clearly haven't improved enough yet. I accept your data

If welfare and food stamps are better than performing farm labor then farm wages and working conditions clearly haven't improved enough yet. I accept your data/claims at face value, that illegal immigration and temporary worker visas have suppressed wages of the poor in some sectors so much that even increasing the wage 5x is insufficient to attract native laborers. What we disagree on is whether or not that wage suppression is a good thing.

scarface74 9y ago
If welfare and food stamps are better than performing farm labor then farm wages and working conditions clearly haven't improved enough yet. It's farm labor - how much can working conditions improve while you are actually doing your job? If I had a choice between making minimum wage and getting government assistance and doing back breaking labor at $20 an hour, I'm not sure that I wouldn't take the minimum wage job and make the commensurate lifestyle choices - roommates, public transportation instead of a car, or if I were so inclined being a part of the underground economy. How many unemployed people are physically capable of doing that kind of work?
- Consultant32452 9y ago
  I can't speak to farming, but I know the going day labor rate, usually construction, for random (illegal) immigrants you can pick up at Home Depot is $20/hr minimum around here. So you'll certainly have to do better than that to get natives. Again, if $20/hr isn't enough, the market will adjust until it is enough. Who cares whether unemployed people are capable of hard physical labor? Plenty of people in the country are capable, so farm wages will just have to compete against other sectors. And when it does, it will raise the wages of EVERYONE in those other sectors because people will leave for the higher wage farm work. This is the mechanism I keep bringing you back to about how it helps all the poor, not just the ones who take the farm labor jobs.
  - scarface74 9y ago
    If everything costs more - especially a necessity like food, how does that not cause inflation and lead everyone Back to the same place? The whole food chain operates on thin margins so they can't eat the cost and reduce their profits.
    - Consultant32452 9y ago
      If labor makes up 50% of the cost of a product, doubling the labor cost doubles the money the worker gets but only increases retail prices by 50%. This is still a great deal for the worker. Why do you feel it's okay to bring in desperately poor brown people to do work that you claim Americans won't do at even 5x the rate we pay the desperately poor people? Why shouldn't back-breaking work bring in a wage that is competitive with the broader market? Why is it okay to flood the market with an over-supply of desperately poor people? Do you think it would have any impact on your income if we brought in 10s of millions of workers to compete against you in whatever you do for a living?
      - scarface74 9y ago
        Because the alternative for the "desperate poor people" to getting poor wages is not getting any wages? Do you think they would be better off not getting anything?
        Consultant32452 9y ago
        So you want to help the poor from other countries at the expense of poor from your own country, which coincidentally benefits you in the form of cheaper produce. That's awfully generous of you.
        deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
        scarface74 9y ago
        How many of the native poor are competing for jobs in the fields? If food prices for me go up by 50% I might grumble, suck it up and pay for it. The poor aren't going to have any choice but to eat cheaper less healthy food. And if food is more expensive to produce in the US because of labor costs, why would it be any different from anything else - the big companies will either start selling cheaper (less healthy) substitutes, or import it from places with cheaper labor.

scarface74 9y ago

If welfare and food stamps are better than performing farm labor then farm wages and working conditions clearly haven't improved enough yet. It's farm labor - how much can working conditions improve while you are actually doing your job? If I had a choice between making minimum wage and getting government assistance and doing back breaking labor at $20 an hour, I'm not sure that I wouldn't take the minimum wage job and make the commensurate lifestyle choices - roommates, public transportation instead of a car, or if I were so inclined being a part of the underground economy. How many unemployed people are physically capable of doing that kind of work?

Consultant32452 9y ago
I can't speak to farming, but I know the going day labor rate, usually construction, for random (illegal) immigrants you can pick up at Home Depot is $20/hr minimum around here. So you'll certainly have to do better than that to get natives. Again, if $20/hr isn't enough, the market will adjust until it is enough. Who cares whether unemployed people are capable of hard physical labor? Plenty of people in the country are capable, so farm wages will just have to compete against other sectors. And when it does, it will raise the wages of EVERYONE in those other sectors because people will leave for the higher wage farm work. This is the mechanism I keep bringing you back to about how it helps all the poor, not just the ones who take the farm labor jobs.
- scarface74 9y ago
  If everything costs more - especially a necessity like food, how does that not cause inflation and lead everyone Back to the same place? The whole food chain operates on thin margins so they can't eat the cost and reduce their profits.
  - Consultant32452 9y ago
    If labor makes up 50% of the cost of a product, doubling the labor cost doubles the money the worker gets but only increases retail prices by 50%. This is still a great deal for the worker. Why do you feel it's okay to bring in desperately poor brown people to do work that you claim Americans won't do at even 5x the rate we pay the desperately poor people? Why shouldn't back-breaking work bring in a wage that is competitive with the broader market? Why is it okay to flood the market with an over-supply of desperately poor people? Do you think it would have any impact on your income if we brought in 10s of millions of workers to compete against you in whatever you do for a living?
    - scarface74 9y ago
      Because the alternative for the "desperate poor people" to getting poor wages is not getting any wages? Do you think they would be better off not getting anything?
      - Consultant32452 9y ago
        So you want to help the poor from other countries at the expense of poor from your own country, which coincidentally benefits you in the form of cheaper produce. That's awfully generous of you.
        deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
        scarface74 9y ago
        How many of the native poor are competing for jobs in the fields? If food prices for me go up by 50% I might grumble, suck it up and pay for it. The poor aren't going to have any choice but to eat cheaper less healthy food. And if food is more expensive to produce in the US because of labor costs, why would it be any different from anything else - the big companies will either start selling cheaper (less healthy) substitutes, or import it from places with cheaper labor.